Ruth M. Kempson and Annabelcormack: Linguistics and Philosophy by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

R U T H M.
K E M P S O N A N D A N N A B E L C O R M A C K
AMBIGUITY AND QUANTIFICATION*
1. PRELIMINARIES
Quantified sentences such as (1) have been recognised for a long time as
providing problems of ambiguity.
(1) Every linguistics student has read a book by Chomsky.
It is of course familiar that in logic the alternative interpretations of a
sentence of this form are expressed as the distinct propositions ~I and II,
which differ in the scope of the quantifiers: 2
(I) ((Vx)(Lx ~ ((::ly)By & Rxy))
(II) (::ly)(By & (Vx)(Lx ~ Rxy))
On the grounds that the concept of logical form applies to sentences as
well as propositions (a problem we return to in section 10), it has been
widely assumed in the linguistic literature that the fact that such sen-
tences may be used to express distinct propositions is a sufficient
condition for claiming that they are ambiguous. In other words, it is
assumed that a sentence-string such as (1) is ambiguous just as (2) and (3)
are
(2) John saw her duck.

(3) Visiting relatives can be fun.
and, similarly, corresponds to distinct sentential analyses in the gram-
mer. Furthermore, it is generally assumed that scope distinctions of this
general type provide comparable evidence of sentential ambiguity in
sentences containing numerically quantified noun phrases such as (4)-(5).
(4) Three examiners marked six scripts.

(5) One hundred students shot twenty professors.
The purpose of this paper is, however, to question this assumption that
the expressing of distinct propositions is grounds for postulating sen-
tence ambiguity. This paper seeks to demonstrate that, on the contrary,
significant generalisations can be captured naturally only if sentence-
strings containing more than one quantifier are analysed as having a
single semantic representation 3 from which the particular interpretations
Linguistics and Philosophy 4 (1981) 259-309. 0165-0157/81/0042-0259 $05.10.

Copyright ~) 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland.
260 R. M. K E M P S O N A N D A. C O R M A C K
are derived by applying general rules. Thus we shall be proposing a

two-level analysis of sentences containing quantified expressions: a
semantic representation which is common to the whole range of possible
uses, and distinct specific interpretations, the propositions, which are
derived from the single semantic representation by general rules: Fur-
thermore, we shall be claiming that a distinction has to be made within
linguistic theory between a definition of logical ambiguity, where a single
sentence-string expresses distinct propositions, and a definition of lin-
guistic ambiguity, where a single sentence-string corresponds to distinct
sentences. Since the detailed justification of this distinction does not
arise until section 10, we shall in general restrict the term ambiguity to
those sentence-strings which correspond to more than one sentence
output of the grammar, where a sentence output is a triple complex of
syntactic, semantic and phonological information)
2. A M B I G U I T Y AND V A G U E N E S S
Much recent literature on sentence ambiguity (cf. Zwicky and Sadock

1975; Schmerling 1978; Atlas 1977, 1978; Gazdar 1979a, 1979b) is concerned
with the distinction between ambiguity and non-ambiguity (equivalently
lack of specification, generality, vagueness), 6 both of which are com-
patible with the pre-theoretical phenomenon of a sentence-string having
more than one interpretation. The initial problem with this distinction is
whether it can be given any empirical basis, for one standard means of
validating a proposed specification of truth conditions for a sentence-
string fails to distinguish formally between ambiguity and vagueness.
Suppose a proposed specification of truth conditions for some sen-
tence-string is tested by constructing conjunctions which contain the
sentence under analysis as the initial conjunct and a sentence which is
predicted to entail the falsity of that conjunct as the second conjunct.
Then, in virtue of the definition of entailment, the analysis is confirmed
if the conjunction is indeed a contradiction, falsified if it is not. In the
case of uncontentiously ambiguous sentence-strings, it is the string upon
an interpretation which stands in relations of entailment to other strings
of the language, not the string itself. When applied to such ambiguous
cases, this conjunction test only predicts as contradictory the following
two types of sentence-string: (a) contradictions which arise from con-
joining the ambiguous sentence-string with the negation of some
entailment which is common to both interpretations of that string; (b)
contradictions which arise from conjoining the ambiguous sentence-string
with both the negation of an entailment of one interpretation and the
A M B I G U I T Y AND Q U A N T I F I C A T I O N 261
negation of an entailment of the other interpretation. Consider for

example (2) in relation to (6)-(20): 7
(6) John saw her duck but he didn't see her move.
(7) John saw her duck but she didn't move.
(8) John saw her duck but she didn't lower herself at all.
(9) John saw her duck but she was at that moment stretching up
to the light-switch.
(10) John saw her duck but he didn't see her ducking.
(11) John saw her duck but she doesn't have a duck.
(12) John saw her duck but she hasn't got a duck.
(13) John saw her duck though she hasn't got any possessions.
(14) John saw her duck though she hasn't got any animals.
(15) John saw her duck but he didn't see anything.
(16) John saw her duck though there is no such man as John.
(17) John saw her duck though there is no female person.
(18) John saw her duck but he didn't see her ducking, and she
hasn't got a duck.
(19) John saw her duck though she didn't move an inch, and she
hasn't got any animals.
(20) John saw her duck but he didn't see her move and she hasn't
got any possessions.
Of these, (6)-(14) are not contradictory strings but merely contradictory

upon an interpretation: only (15)-(20) are contradictory sentence-strings.
But from evidence of this type we can only draw the conclusion that
either the sentence-string is ambiguous, or it requires a semantic
representation 8 which is unspecified (or vague) between the two inter-
pretations. On the one hand, if the string in question were ambiguous it
would only be false qua string if both interpretations were false-hence
the contradictoriness of simultaneously asserting the sentence-string and
denying both of its interpretations is accounted for. On the other hand, if
the sentence-string in question were semantically unspecified with re-
spect to the two interpretations and corresponded to a disjunctive logical
form (see below), the data would also be explained, for a disjunction of
the form 'P v Q' is also false only if both disjuncts are false. Thus an
analysis of John saw her duck either in terms of ambiguity, or in terms of
vagueness across 'vel', is compatible with the contradiction data (15)-(20)
and with (6)-(14).
An alternative means of distinguishing semantic ambiguity from
semantic vagueness is an indirect one. A necessary part of any claim
that some sentence-string is semantically vague despite the evidence of
distinct interpretations in use is an explanation of how such distinct

interpretations can be predicted by general pragmatic principles from
some unitary semantic account of the sentence-string in question (cf.
Carlson 1977). This yields a criterion for ambiguity in a sentence-string
that ambiguity between distinct sentence outputs of the grammar only be
invoked if the multiple interpretations of such a string cannot be
predicted by general principles. In the case of John saw her duck, this
criterion, when combined with the above conjunction test, 9 leads
directly to an ambiguity analysis, since no imaginable general principles
could produce the necessary extra information from a semantic
representation (logical form) of what is common to the string's distinct
interpretations since the entailments these interpretations have in com-
mon, upon which to base the required unitary semantic account, are so
few.
A third test, which unlike the conjunction test appears to be success-
ful in distinguishing ambiguity from vagueness, at least in cases of
lexical ambiguity versus lexical vagueness is that of negation. If an
expression is semantically unspecified for some contrast (as is neighbour
for sex), then it behaves under negation as though its semantic
representation contained a full list of all the possible contrasts available
joined by 'v'. This is so because just as the falsity of a disjunction
requires the falsity of each of the disjuncts, the negation of a sentence P
(containing an unspecified expression) entails the negation of any sen-
tence which entails P. Consider for example (21)-(24):
(21) I've got a neighbour.
(22) I haven't got a neighbour.
(23) John has got a brother-in-law.
(24) John hasn't got a brother-in-law.
While (21) is compatible with the truth of both I've got a female
neighbour and I've got a male neighbour, (22) entails both I haven't got
a female neighbour AND I haven't got a male neighbour. Similarly for
(23)-(24), which contain an expression which appears to require a
disjunctive lexical specification: while (23) indicates either that John has
a sister who is married, or that John is married to someone who has a
brother, (24) indicates that both of these possibilities are false. If then
we assign to an expression such as brother-in-law ~° a single represen-
tation containing a disjunction across 'v' of the two distinct inter-
pretations, we predict (a) that an utterance asserting that such an
expression applies will be true if either disjunct is true (other things
being equal), ~l (b) that it will be understood non-specifically with respect
to those distinct interpretations, and (c) that it will only be false if both
disjuncts are false. By way of contrast, an ambiguous expression cannot
be characterised by a single disjunctive set of possibilities, for the
grammar must be designed to predict that the negation of an ambiguous
sentence-string has two independent sets of truth conditions as does the
corresponding positive sentence-string. 12 That is to say, John's car
didn't hit the bank and John didn't see her duck are ambiguous in the
same way as their respective positive congeners (ignoring for the
moment the question of whether negation itself creates further am-
biguity). 13 Unlike the case of brother-in-law, these negative strings may
be used to make a true statement if either one of the interpretations of
their corresponding positive sentence-strings is false) 4
None of these tests is as familiar as the verb-phrase anaphora test
proposed by Zwicky and Sadock (1975) as a criterion for distinguishing
ambiguity from vagueness (non-ambiguity), a test which they argued is
only partially successful. The test itself can be summarised as follows. If
a sentence-string is ambiguous between two distinct semantic represen-
tations, then any anaphoric expression, such as a VP pro-form, must by
the condition of identity be restricted to the same interpretation as its
antecedent. On the other hand, if a sentence-string is unspecified with
respect to some contrast, then since the semantic representation itself
does not constrain the interpretation of the string along that parameter,
the requirement of identity imposed by anaphoric processes is not
sensitive to it, and the so-called "crossed interpretations" may arise. The
cases which Zwicky and Sadock argued were problematic are examples
where a sentence-string has two interpretations which are not in-
dependent, but where rather one entails the other, since in such cases
"crossed interpretations" are available on the more general of the
interpretations, this in their view vitiating the usefulness of this test as a
criterion for ambiguity when applied to such examples. 15 There are,
however, independent reasons to think that cases where one inter-
pretation of a string entails a second, more specific, interpretation of that
string are indeed not in general semantically ambiguous between distinct
sentential characterisations in the grammar. We have already seen that
in the case of the sentence string John saw her duck where the sets of
truth conditions are logically independent of each other, a semantic
description representing only those entailments which are common to
both interpretations would be very much too weak. However in all cases
where a sentence-string which is purportedly ambiguous between inter-
pretations one of which is more general than the other, the contrast
between them is a restricted set of entailments-just those that are
entailments of the stronger but not of the weaker. If then this set of
entailments can in all cases be predicted by some general rule, whether
semantic or pragmatic, operating upon the logical form corresponding to
the weaker of the two interpretations, then it is not only unnecessary to
invoke ambiguity, but it is also failing to recognise the general principle
operating.
Furthermore, if we look at the formal properties of the alternative
logically dependent interpretations of a sentence-string, it becomes clear
that they have more in common with cases involving lack of
specification than they do with cases of ambiguity. That this is so can be
demonstrated by making the counterfactual assumption that there is no
ambiguity in natural languages. Accordingly each sentence-string is
assigned a single logical form to predict the set of contradictions which
can be formed by conjoining that string with others in the language. In
many cases, the unambiguous ones, there will of course be no problem.
But in the case of John saw her duck, where, as we have already seen,
the sentence-strings (6)-(14) are not in fact contradictions but only
contradictions upon one interpretation, the analyst has no option but to
agree that the strings (25)-(30) are not entailments of John saw her duck.
(25) John saw her move.

(26) She moved.
(27) She lowered herself.
(28) She has a duck.
(29) She has an animal.
(30) She has some possession.
If we maintain this assumption of no ambiguity, the only simple sen-

tences which are entailments of this sentence are entailments which are
common to both interpretations:
(31) John exists.

(32) She exists.
(33) John saw something.
In the face of this evidence, one might attempt an alternative charac-
terisation of ambiguity by setting up a disjunction of two logical forms,
joined either by 'v' or ,~,j6 But each of these, as already argued, is
doomed to disaster. However in the case of sentence-strings whose two
interpretations are logically dependent, the possibility of postulating a
logical form corresponding to the weaker of the two interpretations is, as
we have seen, at least not implausible as long as the existence of the
stronger interpretation can be predicted by independently motivated
AMBIGUITY AND QUANTIFICATION 265
principles. Moreover, the alternative of specifying the two inter-

pretations as a disjunction across 'v' turns out to be an illusion for just
these cases: it is not logically distinct from a single semantic represen-
tation corresponding to the less rich set of entailments. 17Thus, under the
counterfactual assumption that ambiguity does not exist, an alternative
characterisation of a sentence-string with logically dependent inter-
pretations is possible, but reduces to a single characterisation, that of the
more general interpretation. It is only sentence-strings with logically
independent interpretations that can cause any conflict with the data,
given this assumption. This forcibly suggests that only these are seman-
tically ambiguous between entirely distinct sentential characterisations
(cf. Kempson 1979 where this argument is applied to the distinction
between internal and external negation). There thus seem to be
arguments, both of a formal and of a methodological kind, which suggest
that the postulation of ambiguity for a sentence-string should be restric-
ted to those cases where the two interpretations are not logically related
to each other.
A preliminary look at the distinction between ambiguity and vague-
ness has led to proposing four possible semantic criteria for determining
whether a sentence-string with distinct interpretations in use should not
be analysed as ambiguous between distinct sentence outputs of the
grammar: (i) if the distinct interpretations in use of such a sentence-
string can be captured by general pragmatic principles, (ii) if there is
only one available interpretation of the negation of the string, (iii) if the
verb-phrase anaphora test allows crossed interpretations, (iv) if the
distinct interpretations of the sentence-string are related by entailment.
3. QUANTIFIED SENTENCES: WHY PROPOSE NO AMBIGUITY?
With these criteria in mind, let us turn to quantified sentences. This type
of sentence is notorious for providing problems in almost all areas of
syntax and semantics. They are subject to a range of interpretations
which are often hard to pinpoint; and the empirical evidence in con-
nection with quantifiers is invariably hard to assess, as we shall see.
Since the standard logic is set up to describe scope variations in terms of
distinct logical forms, an analysis in terms of sentential ambiguity may
appear to be both plausible and natural. Our first task is therefore to
explore both the feasibility and the plausibility of the alternative, more
radical, view that the distinct propositions expressed by quantified
sentence-strings are not matched by distinct semantic representations of
the sentence-string.
266 R. M. K E M P S O N AND A. C O R M A C K
The cases traditionally considered in the literature are sentences

containing mixed universal and existential quantification:
(34) Every linguistics student has read a book by Chomsky. ( = (1)

above)
(35) Every linguistics student has read some book by Chomsky.
(36) A book by Chomsky has been read by every linguistics
student.
(37) Some book by Chomsky has been read by every linguistics
student.
Various views have been expressed in the literature about the numbers
of interpretations these sentence-strings have, but given the non-con-
tradictory nature of (38)-(41) we assume that any account of the truth
conditions of strings (34)-(37) must predict that each of them is com-
patible both with only one book by Chomsky being read, and with more
than one book by Chomsky being read.
(38) Every linguistics student has read a book by Chomsky:

they've all read Language and Mind.
Sue has read Reflections on Language, Max Syntactic
I Structures and Mary Aspects.
student:
Structures, and Mary Aspects.
(40) Every linguistics student has read some book by Chomsky:
student:
I Sue has read Reflections on Language, Max Syntactic

Despite the acceptability of (38)-(41), it is nevertheless uncontroversial
that (34)-(37) vary as to which interpretation is the most natural. Thus
one of the parameters whereby an ambiguity analysis might be evaluated
against an analysis in terms of a single semantic representation for the
sentence is the extent to which either provides the basis for an account
of why the preferred interpretations of the sentences vary. Before

looking at such a pragmatically oriented argument however, there is
evidence which suggests the semantic plausibility of an analysis (of such
sentence-strings) in terms of some single unitary semantic represen-
tation.
For the two interpretations of example (34), represented by logical
forms (I) and (II) (cf. p. 259 above), are not logically independent. Rather,
(II) entails (I); and according to the general line of argumentation in the
previous section, together with that of Zwicky and Sadock (1975), Atlas
(1977), and Kempson (1979), sentence-strings containing mixed universal
and existential quantification should therefore be analysed as unam-
biguous, having semantically only the weaker of the two interpretations
(logical form (I)), which in standard logic is expressed as a form with the
universal quantifier having wide scope. 18Thus all of (34)-(37) appear not
to be ambiguous between distinct sentential characterisations but rather
to demand a single representation corresponding to the weaker of the
two interpretations, the stronger interpretation being merely a special
case of the weaker. The exact nature of this representation and the
relation between the two interpretations, we shall return to below.
Having established the initial plausibility of an analysis of some mixed
quantification sentences in terms of a weak specification of semantic
representation, one might wonder if this generalises to all quantified
sentences, in particular to sentences containing more than one numeric-
ally quantified expression, such as (42):
(42) Two examiners marked six scripts.
It is not a new observation (cf. Lakoff 1972) that a sentence such as (42)
has several interpretations, and we can isolate the following four:
(i) Two examiners marked six scripts each (subject noun phrase
with wide scope)
(ii) Two examiners as a group marked a group of six scripts
between them (to be labelled 'the incomplete group inter-
pretation')
(iii) Six scripts were each marked by two examiners (object noun
phrase with wide scope)
(iv) Two examiners each marked the same set of six scripts (to be
labelled 'the complete group interpretation').
(i) and (iii) are the scope-differentiated interpretations. The so-called
incomplete group interpretation, (ii), is one in which not every member
of the first group bears the appropriate relation to each member of the
second group, though any member of the first group must bear the
relation in question to at least one member of the second group, and vice
versa. The complete group interpretation is stronger than this: each
member of the first group on this interpretation does bear the ap-
propriate relation to each member of the second group.
There are several entailment dependencies here which, according to
the ambiguity restriction of Kempson 1979 would suggest that at least
not all of these interpretations are sufficiently distinct to warrant an
analysis in terms of ambiguity. In particular, (iv) separately entails each
of (i), (ii), and (iii); and could therefore be analysed as a special case of
any one of (i), (ii) or (iii). However (i), (ii) and (iii) are logically
independent of each other. Why then, it might be asked, should there be
any doubt as to the three-way ambiguity of (42)?
The first problem arises with the VP pro-form test, which if so
manipulated as to contain two quantified expressions within the verb
phrase appears to allow a difference in interpretation between the
antecedent and the pro-form, yielding data inconsistent with an am-
biguity analysis. Take for example (43):
(43) John was supervising six students working on two projects.
This can bear the interpretations (i) six students each had two separate
projects, (ii) the group of six students were working on a total of two
projects, (iii) two projects each had six students working on them, and
(iv) six students were working together on a total of two projects. But in
a construction containing a conjoined verb-phrase pro-form, mixed
interpretations are available, as is shown by (44):
(44) At the time, John was supervising six students working on

two projects, and so was I. But John had much more work
than I did, since his students each had quite separate projects.
I was much better off, since my students co-operated to a
very large extent: three out of six worked on one, with some
help from a fourth; and all but one of them contributed to the
second project.
(44) provides an example of a verb phrase containing two quantified
noun phrases allowing distinct, and crossed understandings between one
interpretation of the verb phrase itself and another interpretation of a
verb-phrase pro-form which follows it. But, if the test is to be relied
upon, this suggests, on the contrary, that sentences such as (43) and (42)
likewise, are not semantically ambiguous according as the inter-relations
between the individual numbers of the sets are differently specified, but
are rather simply unspecified semantically as to the nature of this

inter-relation.
Secondly, even where the interpretations are logically independent, as
are the two scope-differentiated interpretations and the incomplete
group interpretation, they are not unrelated. On the contrary, from a
logical representation of the incomplete group interpretation, one can
automatically predict the existence of logical forms corresponding to the
two scope-differentiated interpretations (cf. section 7 for detailed dis-
cussion).
Thirdly, the number of distinct sentence-characterisations for a single
string (according to the ambiguity analysis) increases sharply as the
number of quantified expressions in the sentence increases. Consider
(45):
(45) Three fanatics have submitted four articles on the race issue
to five dailies.
Under an ambiguity account, this sentence-string will be at least
nineteen ways ambiguous, the majority of the interpretations pairwise
logically independent. In linguistic terms, this means that a sentence-
string with three noun phrases containing number expressions will
correspond to about nineteen distinct sentence outputs of the grammar.
For a sentence-string containing four numerically quantified noun
phrases, the prediction will be even worse, so much so that it is too
confusing to calculate. Such a prediction of sentential ambiguity is, we
suggest, at least implausible. In contrast to this, if a sentence-string with
two numerically quantified noun phrases could be assigned a single
semantic representation which did not specify in detail the relation
between the members of the two sets in question, the large increase in
potential interpretative possibilities as the numbers of quantified
expressions increase is independently predictable. In sum, there are
three independent pieces of evidence which suggest that an analysis of
mixed numerical quantification should be in terms of a weakly specified
semantic representation which is common to each of the possible
distinct interpretations of any such sentence.
4. THE ANALYSIS
No proposed analysis is attractive unless it is feasible. The next step is

therefore to provide a logical notation which will enable us both to
provide a unitary representation of the semantic properties of sentence-
strings containing more than one quantifier, and also to state the rela-
tions between this representation and its interpretations corresponding

to the distinct logical forms assigned under the ambiguity account. 19
Since the notation to be used is most transparently motivated in the case
of numerically quantified noun phrases, we shall consider these first
before extending the notation to existential and universal quantifiers.
Consider again then sentence (42) (repeated here for convenience):
(42) Two examiners marked six scripts.
What is needed for all strings of this type is a logical form which while
specifying the numbers of the entities involved in each noun phrase does
not allow the inference that the specified number of participants was
involved in each instance of the relation in question. 2° We wish to say
for example that (42) is true if for at least two examiners there is some
relationship between them and at least six scripts that were marked but
without specifying that there is a necessary relationship between any
particular members of the set of examiners and any particular members
of the set of scripts. Consider therefore the following as a tentative
initial characterisation of (42).
Let the set of examiners be X.
Then we define a variable set of two examiners:
X2={x~,x2} where x~#x2 and X2CX.
Let the set of scripts be S.

Then similarly we define a variable set of six scripts:
$6={sl, s2, s3, s4, ss, s6} where s l . . . s 6 are distinct and S6CS.
M(x, s) is a binary relation between x E X and s E S which holds when
the examiner (x) marked the script (s). Then a possible formulation of a
logical form for (42) with the requisite generality is: 2~
(III) 3X2 V x 3 S 6 3 s Mxs & 3S6 V s 3X2 3 x Mxs.

x~X 2 sES 6 sES 6 xEX 2
Informally, this reads as: there are at least two examiners of each of
whom it is true that he marked a script and there are at least six scripts
of each of which it is true that an examiner marked it. 22 The inter-
pretations that We outlined above (p. 267) are formalised in a similar
manner. As with (III), let X be the set of examiners, S the set of scripts,
X2 the variable which ranges over any pair of examiners, $6 the variable
which ranges over any sextet of scripts. We then have (IV)-(VII):
(IV) 3X2 V X :::]86 V S Mxs subject NP with wide scope.

xEX 2 sES 6
(V) 3S6 V s 3)(2 V x Mxs object NP with wide scope.

~s6 x~x:
(VI) ~X2~$6( Vx2x 3 s Mxs & V s 3 x Mxs )

x s~S 6 s~S o x~X 2
incomplete group interpretation.
(VII) 3X2 3S6 V x V s Mxs complete group interpretation.

xEX 2 sES 6
Informally, (IV) reads as: there is a set of (at least) two examiners of
each of whom it is true that there is a set of six scripts, each of which
that examiner marked. (V), conversely, reads as: there is a set of (at
least) six scripts of each of which it is true that there is a set of two
examiners, each of whom marked that script. (VI) and (VII) are the
incomplete group and complete group interpretations respectively (cf. p.
267 above). (VI) reads as: there is a set of two examiners and a set of six
scripts such that for all members of the set of examiners there is a
member of the set of scripts that he marked, and for all members of the
set of scripts there is a member of the set of examiners that marked it. z3
The complete group interpretation is the limiting case of this where each
examiner marked each script.
Now there is an interesting connection between (VI) and (VII), which
is relevant to the other interpretations. Despite the widespread use of
sentences of this form with an understanding corresponding to (VII), it
is often not identified as a separate reading from (VI), because it is a
special case of (VI). Further when we say that (VII) is a special case of
(VI) (say), we do not mean simply that we can see or prove that (VII)
entails (VI). We mean rather that as we envisage the varying situations
under which (VI) might be used, we see how there arises a subset of
these situations which could be described by (VII). In the case of (VI),
the relevant variety in the situations arises at the point where
' 3 x M x s 'or' 3 s M x s " a r e true. In the case that 'at least one of
xEX 2 s~S,~
the two examiners happens to cover 'both the examiners', or where

'at least one of the six scripts' happens to cover 'all of the six scripts',
then the existential quantifier there may be replaced by the universal
one, and in either case we get the situation described by (VII). In other
words, behind this intuition of (VII) being a special case of (VI) is a
procedure relating the two forms, which we shall call 'generalising'. The
formal statement of this procedure is:
Replace ' 3 x' by ' V' 'generalising'.

x C_X. x •X n
272 R. M. KEMPSON AND A. CORMACK
It is this procedure of generalising an existential quantifier which also

relates the general form (III) to the two scope-differentiated logical
forms (IV) and (V).
Not only is (VII) a special case of VI, it is also a special case of (IV)
and (V), and by analogy with the relation between (VI) and (VII) there
should be a stateable procedure for relating these. There is; and
moreover it is this relation which is needed to state the relation between
the general form (III), and the other remaining form-that of the in-
complete group interpretation, (VI). Consider then initially (IV) and
(VII). The relevant variation in these is concealed by the scope con-
ventions of the quantifier notation. Taking (IV) for instance, the set $6
whose existence is required does not have the same status as the set $6
in (VII) or (V): what is required is weaker. Such a set may be found for
one of the members of X2 and another such set may be found for the
other member of X2. (This is of course implicit in saying that $6 is within
the scope of the quantification over X2, viz. ¥ x). There are then at
x~X 2
least two sets $6 which satisfy the condition specified by (IV). Now, as
these sets vary, it may happen that they coincide, say in S~. z4 If there is
such a set S~, then it can be specified prior to the mention of the
universal quantification over X2. That is to say, the two quantifiers in
question may be reversed, giving exactly the specification of (VII). In
other words, to relate (VII) to (IV), all that is required is a procedure in
which the order of a universally quantified set of individuals followed by
an existentially quantified set in its scope is reversed to yield an
existential quantifier with a universal quantifier in ITS scope. This
procedure will be termed 'uniformising' (a term suggested to us by
Wilfred Hodges, after a similar use in mathematics):
Replace' V x : l y ' by '3Y V x' 'uniformising'.
xEX n xcX n
The same procedure applied to ' 'v" s :IX2' in (V) will yield (VII). Thus
sES6
we have a procedure for showing (VII) to be a special case not only of
(VI) but of (IV) and (V).
We have not yet discussed the relation between the proposed general
form (III) and the logical forms of the various interpretations, in parti-
cular (VI). If we now take the tentatively proposed general form (III),
and apply both of the procedures of uniformising and generalising to it,
we have several possibilities: to apply generalisation to the first or
second conjunct of III; to apply uniformisation to either of the con-
juncts; or to apply more than one of these four successively. If we apply
generalisation (to '3 s') in the first conjunct of (III), we obtain the logical
form (IV), the second part of (III) becoming redundant. Similarly,

applying generalisation (to '3x') in the second conjunct, we obtain
logical form (V). Having obtained these, in either case there is only one
further possibility: we apply uniformisation, and as we described above,
obtain the form (VII).
If instead we apply uniformisation first, say to the first conjunct of
(III), we get (VIII):
(VIII) ~X2~$6 V x 3 sMxs & ~$6 ~ S 3X2 3 x M x s .

xCX2 s~.S6 sES6 xEX2
Alternatively the procedure could be applied to the second conjunct giving

(IX):
(IX) 3X: V x3S6 3 s M x s & 3S63X2 V s 3 x Mxs.

xEX2 s~S6 s~S6 x@X2
From (VIII), we ~obtain the complete group interpretation, (VII), if we

generalise the first conjunct, and (V), the interpretation with the object
noun phrase having wide scope, if we generalise the second. Similarly,
from (IX), we obtain (IV) if we generalise the first of its conjuncts, and
(VII) if we generalise the second. Uniformising both conjuncts of the
initial form (III) gives (X):
(X) ~ X2 3S6 V x 3 s Mxs & 3S6~X2 ~ s ~ x Mxs.

xcx2 sES6 sEs6 xEx 2
This is equivalent to (VI) (the incomplete group interpretation), if we

add one additional constraint, that any single noun phrase which is taken
to have a referent can only be understood to have a single assignment of
reference. 25 Indeed one might say this is a truism. With just this
constraint as a filter, the application of the uniformising procedure yields
(VI). 26 What we are proposing, then, as an alternative to the con-
ventional ambiguity account is that all sentences of a form correspond-
ing to (42) have a single logical form, which is then subject to the
procedures of generalising and uniformising to yield the various inter-
pretations of the sentence in use. The exact status of these procedures
we shall return to shortly.
When we return to sentence-strings containing mixed existential and
universal quantifiers, we find that what we require for capturing the
relation between the more general interpretation, where the second
indefinite noun phrase is understood distributively, and the more specific
interpretation, where it is understood specifically, is none other than the
procedure of uniformisation proposed for the mixed numerical cases.

Consider again
(35) Every linguistics student has read some book by Chomsky.
student.
student.
Since we are assuming on the basis of arguments given above that each
of these is unambiguous and has a relatively weak semantic represen-
tation, they will all have a single logical form (equivalent to logical form
(I) above). 27 According to the pattern set up for the previous cases, they
would have a logical form (XI): 28
(XI) 3 S V s 3B1 3 b Rsb & 3B1 V b 3S 3 s Rsb.

s~S bEBj bEB I sES
In this particular case (because the second noun phrase involves a

one-member set) the second conjunct is redundant, being included in the
first conjunct. (XI) is therefore equivalent, and reduces, to (XII):
(XII) 3S V s 3BI 3 b Rsb.

s~S b~B I
This form (XII) is subject to both the procedure of uniformisation and

that of generalisation. In the latter case, the application of the procedure
is vacuous, given the subscript determining the total number of members
in the set to be one. However, the application of uniformisation is not
vacuous, but yields:
3S 3Bj V s V b Rsb
sES b~!B 1
this being a logical form equivalent to the earlier form in the standard
notation, (II) c.f.p. 259 above). By the use of this procedure, we are
again able to give a formal characterisation not only of why there are
two separate understandings of the examples (34)-(37) (cf. p. 266 above),
but also of why one is a special case of the other, more general
understanding. What the theoretical status of this procedure is, and how
this analysis yields different preferred interpretations for such sentence-
strings are questions we shall take up in due course. For the present, it is
sufficient that a procedure set up to explain one set of facts automatic-
ally applies to explain a second set.
5. THE MAPPING PROBLEM

We are now in a position to compare the two types of analysis of
quantified sentence-strings-an ambiguity account between distinct sen-
tences versus a two-level vagueness account in which only a single
semantic representation is postulated and the more detailed inter-
pretations are derived by a set of procedures applying variously to that
semantic representation. As we shall shortly see, the comparison
resolves itself into a comparison between five alternatives, three alter-
native accounts advocating a single semantic representation and two
alternative ambiguity accounts.
The first point of comparison is the well-known problem of the
divergence between the logical structure set up to represent the semantic
interpretation of quantifiers, and the structure required for syntactic
purposes. If we assume that the structure characterising the syntactic
properties of quantified noun phrases has the quantifier within the noun
phrase it modifies (as required for Quantifier-Floating, and indepen-
dently argued for by Selkirk 1977), in other words closely resembling
surface structure, then in both the ambiguity analysis and the vagueness
account so far proposed, we have a considerable mapping problem. In
the latter account, there is, for a single-clause sentence-string containing
two quantifiers, invariably a mapping from the one-clause sentence onto
a co-ordinate logical form. Though this might seem good reason to
eschew the vagueness account without more ado, such a move would be
unwarranted. For the problems facing the ambiguity account are not
noticeably different in kind. The recognition of the so-called incomplete
group interpretation itself requires a co-ordinate logical representation.
Thus as long as there is agreement that the range of interpretations to be
explained must include the incomplete group interpretation, 29 both types
of analysis seem to require a mapping from a simple clause structure to
a co-ordinate logical form. This problem might therefore seem to be
neutral between the competing analyses. If the mapping problem can be
solved for the one type of analysis, it can be solved for the other? °
This is one possible stand-point: there is however an alternative,
which we referred to earlier-that the sentence-strings in question have a
single semantic representation as before, but that the single represen-
tation required for a sentence such as Two examiners marked six scripts
is weaker even than the logical form (III) postulated above, and has the
form (XIII):
(XIII) BX2 BS6 B x B s Mxs.

x~x2 ~es~
276 R.M. KEMPSON AND A. CORMACK
If this form can be independently motivated, then the mapping problem

is solved at a blow, for the above form is equivalent to
(XIV) 3X2 3 x3S6 3 sMxs

x~.X 2 s~S 6
thus reducing the mapping problem to an extraction of the quantifiers

from the argument structure. The motivation for this move lies in
examples where a mixed quantification sentence is used to describe
circumstances where even a semantic representation of the same struc-
ture as the weak logical form (III) would predict the sentence to be
false; for such sentences can be appropriately used to describe circum-
stances in which the activity described is not in fact true of even the
number of members specified. Consider example (46):
(46) Six students took five papers.
(46) might well be used appropriately of a raid on the administrative
offices by six students in which only one of the six actually carried the
scripts from the place they had been in, as long as the other five were
involved in some way in the operation. The other five however did not
actually take the papers. Or suppose seven linguists raid the University
library and three of them tear out the pages of six volumes of Mind
while the rest stand around chanting 'Down with intellectualism', then it
is certainly appropriate 3~ to say that seven linguists defaced six volumes
of Mind. Examples such as these are common enough. If then we no
longer require of any numerically specified set that it involve universal
quantification over the individuals of that set, then the logical form
assigned to sentence (46) as its initial representation would not be of the
form (III) but would be weakened to a form like (XV): 32
(XV) 3S63 s3P53 pTsp & ~Ps 3 p3S6 3 s Tsp.
sES~ P~P5 P~P5 ~$6
Indeed we already have the independently motivated procedure of

generalising for characterising the fact that existential quantification over
members of a set is often strengthened to be understood as universal
quantification. But with this further weakening, the double binding of the
variables becomes otiose, and the form (XV) reduces to a form parallel
to (XIV), viz. (XVI):
(XVI) 3 S 6 3 s 3P5 3 p Tsp.

:;ES6 P~P5
Thus there is evidence that the logical form of Two examiners marked
six scripts, (42), should be (XIII). Indeed all the required readings
(IV)-(VII) can be obtained directly from (XIII) using just the generalising
procedure. 33 And thus it is that (XIII) could be argued to be the
appropriate logical form for sentence (42), with a corresponding general
argument that all sentences of this form should have a weak logical form
along these lines.
So, even granting the vagueness analysis of quantified sentences, there
are at least two alternatives: either the logical form assigned is weak
enough to be compatible with all uses of the sentence, or it is one from
which only the two scope-differentiated interpretations plus the in-
complete group interpretation can be derived. In the former case, all the
procedures required are strengthening procedures; in the latter case one
requires both strengthening procedures as before, plus a weakening
procedure to explain why it is that a form with universal quantification
over members of a set can appropriately be used to characterise cir-
cumstances where this condition is not met. Since the procedures of
uniformising and generalising have motivation independently of this
particular case, we shall assume for present purposes that the former
alternative (to be called hereafter the radical vagueness account) has
some initial plausibility. What of the second alternative of postulating a
procedure of weakening? There is some indication that such a strategy is
used in other areas. We can for example use the sentence That is square
to describe shapes which may only approximately be said to have four
equal sides and four right angles (as for example in a drawing); yet
despite this appropriate use of the sentence, we would not wish to
weaken the definition of square so as to be compatible with such
approximations. But in order to generalise from this case to the case of
mixed quantification we would have to be content with a pragmatic
principle as vague as 'Speakers may be sloppy: inaccurate represen-
tation is tolerated as long as the inaccuracy is not relevant.' Not only is
this principle extremely general, but it is not obvious that the ap-
proximate use of square is parallel to the case of quantifiers. For in the
case of square the incorporation of some concept of approximation into
the definition of square would complicate the definition of square
considerably; but in the case of the quantifiers, the required adjustment
simplifies the semantic characterisation.
The alternative of specifying the non-co-ordinate logical form (XIII)
as the semantic representation of (42) is however not without its prob-
lems. First, it must be recalled that the general methodological principle
has normally been to postulate the strongest logical form that is com-
patible with the evidence, and the existence of strengthening principles
is not in itself justification for postulating a weaker form. Second, if
such a form were postulated, the distinction between different numbers

would be all but eradicated, not emerging fully until after the procedure
of generalisation had applied. All that would be claimed in such a logical
form for (42) would be that at least one examiner did some marking and
at least one script was marked and that there are at least two examiners
and at least six scripts. It does not make any difference to the logical
strength of the claim whether or not the one examiner who did some
marking is one of the two examiners mentioned as existing. In other
words, (XIII) is truth-conditionally equivalent to (XIX):
(XIX) 3Xl 3SI ~ ~ s Mxs t~ ~X 2 • 3S6,

xEx I sESt
But data of this type can adduced for all examples of numerical
quantification, and one could therefore provide arguments for a cor-
respondingly weak logical form for all numerically quantified sentences.
This would result in the claim that all numerically quantified sentences
containing the same predicate items were logically equivalent so far as the
predicate is concerned, at the level of semantic representation. In order to
remedy this, we would have to postulate the obligatory use of a pragmatic
axiom which has the effect of guaranteeing that any utterance of a sentence
containing numerical e~pressions must be used so that the numbers are
relevant to the arguments of the predicate in that sentence (cf. section 9
below). Finally, we have the problem that the greater the interaction of the
procedures, the greater the number of possible interpretations predicted.
And too many interpretations are predicted from this weak logical form,
with no apparent independent explanation of why the additional form
predicted is not a possible understanding of the sentence. Not only are the
required interpretations derived by the procedures as we have seen, but so
is (XX):
(XX) 3X23S6 (x~x, s~s6VSMxs & ,,~s63S x~x2x Mxs).

(XX) reads informally as: there is a set of two examiners and a set of six
scripts, of which at least one examiner marked all the scripts and at least
one script was marked by all the examiners. This putative reading is
perfectly possible, but it is apparently thought of as a special, and
insignificant, case of reading (VI). Yet there is no rule so far which
explains why this form is not a distinct interpretation in use. Indeed it
provides a striking case of the existence of a logical form NOT being
sufficient justification in itself (cf. p. 298 below) for the incorporation of
that form as part of the analysis. Thus adopting this alternative involves
postulating a filter (cf. p. 297f. below) to explain why this not a possible
interpretation.
So far then we have three different possible points of comparison in
connection with the mapping problem:
(i) If the logical form for a sentence such as (42) is (III), and if the
ambiguity analysis involves a maximal prediction of ambiguity, including
at least the incomplete group interpretation as a reading, then both
analyses face the same mapping problem, viz. stating the relationship
between a syntactically simple sentence structure and at least one
co-ordinate logical form.
(ii) If the logical form for (42) is (XIII), i.e. the radical vagueness
analysis, then it compares favourably with the maximal ambiguity ac-
count since, though it may be implausibly weak, its relation to all
available interpretations can be captured by independently motivated
principles, and the mapping problem is reduced to a familiar mapping
procedure.
(iii) The proposed logical form (XIII) also compares favourably to the
possible logical form (III) in two respects; not only does it provide a
more satisfactory solution to the mapping problem, but all the steps
involved in predicting the available interpretations can be given a precise
formal characterisation. In the case of the alternative logical form (III)
put forward earlier, we have to resort to a strategy of approximation in
order to account for cases where none of the logical forms proposed
under this analysis are appropriate.
Before leaving the mapping problem, there are two further hypotheses
to consider, one involving ambiguity, one vagueness. The remaining
ambiguity alternative (which Jay Atlas informs us is due to Jerry
Sadock) incorporates the claim that strings with more than one
quantified noun phrase are ambiguous with respect to scope (i.e. with
logical forms of the type represented by (IV) and (V)) but not in respect
of the incomplete and complete group interpretations (parallel to logical
forms (VI) and (VII)). These are to be derived by pragmatic principles.
Under this analysis (which we shall call the restricted ambiguity analysis),
the mapping problem is the familiar one of predicting scope distinctions
from a single surface string: the mapping on to a co-ordinate logical form is
avoided, since the interpretation which requires this complexity is not
granted the status of an independent interpretation. The pragmatic
principles required under this analysis would be the strengthening prin-
ciple of uniformising (to produce the complete group interpretation as a
special case of each of the scope-differentiated readings (cf. p. 271f.
above), and some weakening principle of approximation, allowing one to
280 R.M. KEMPSON A N D A. C O R M A C K
use the strengthened output of uniformising loosely to obtain the in-

complete group reading.
There are at least two aspects of this analysis which are implausible.
First, the use of the procedure of uniformising in conjunction with an
analysis of scope differentiation in terms of ambiguity; second the
extensive use of some approximation principle. The reason that a
restricted ambiguity analysis combining uniformisation and scope am-
biguity is unattractive is that it is uniformisation which converts one
order of quantifiers into the other (by moving one leftward to the front
of the logical formula), and which therefore may replace an analysis in
terms of scope ambiguity. Secondly, our view is that the more a
hypothesis makes use of the approximation principle, the less convinc-
ing it becomes. For the principle in its proposed form is so vague it
could even appear to allow the most specific logical form, (VII), the
complete group interpretation, as the basic form, all the others being
seen as progressively grosser approximations to this semantic ideal. If
on the other hand, we attempt to specify precisely the procedure
required for quantifiers, then we find the opposite problem that there
appears to be no generalisation available even for this limited data. Such
an attempt to state precisely what is involved in these weakenings would
for example require the inverse procedure to generalising in order to
transform the logical form for the complete group interpretation, (VII),
into (XIII), the very weak form, thus explaining why it is that such
sentences can be used in circumstances in which only one member of
each numerically quantified set may be involved in the process in
question. But this process of transforming universal quantification over
individuals into existential quantification cannot be applied to the logical
form for the complete group interpretation, (VII), to yield (VI), the form
for the incomplete group interpretation. Thus a separate procedure
would have to be set up to account for these cases, with no generalisa-
tion as to what counts as an approximation even for quantified sen-
tences. For these reasons, an analysis which requires such extensive use
of a principle of approximation does not seem a strong contender. Some
such principle will however be required as a pragmatic explanation by
any analysis which does not provide a semantic account of the very
weak use of mixed quantification sentences: for except for the radical
vagueness analysis, they must all predict such sentences to be false
under these exceptional circumstances. 34 So both ambiguity accounts
face the same problem-either they have to propose as a separate
sentential representation (XIII), which is not normally used as an inter-
pretation of the sentence; or they have to rely on a principle of

approximation. 35
Our list of alternative analyses of mixed quantification sentences is
now boosted to four. In connection with the mapping problem, the
alternative of positing only a two-way ambiguity compares favourably to
the first vagueness alternative of positing a co-ordinate logical form
(though, implausibly, it makes greater use of approximation principles),
but it fails to oust the radical vagueness analysis with its very weak form
(XIII), as providing the closest correspondence between semantic and
syntactic representations. Furthermore, it is only the radical vagueness
analysis which can capture the relationships between the interpretations
with complete explicitness.
The final alternative, to which we shall give but a brief airing, is to
propose a single logical form for such strings which is made up of a
disjunction of all the possible interpretations of the string in question,
thus granting that the distinct uses of sentences containing more than
one quantifier are not sufficient to warrant assigning each a distinct
sentential characterisation. Thus the logical form proposed for Two
examiners marked six scripts, (42), assuming our notation as before,
might be:
(XXI) 3X2 V x 3S~ V s Mxs v 3S6 V s 3X2 V x Mxs v

xCX 2 sES 6 sES 6 xEX 2
(3X2 V x 3 S 6 74 s M x s & 3S6 V s::lX, 3 x Mxslj

x~X 2 sES 6 sES 6 xEX 2
It should be obvious immediately that while such a form is compatible

with some of the facts, it poses a grotesque mapping problem. All
sentences of this type would require a mapping from a single-clause
structure on to a complex logical form containing both co-ordination and
disjunction; furthermore it does not capture any of the dependencies
between the interpretations, and it requires both the application of
procedures and filters to determine the actual interpretations in use. In
short, this analysis combines the disadvantages of each of the various
ambiguity and vagueness accounts.
Up to this point, we have confined all discussion of the mapping
problem to the case of mixed numerical quantifiers. If however we turn
back to the cases of mixed universal and existential quantification, and
take example (34) (repeated here for convenience),
we find immediate support for the radical vagueness analysis of mixed
quantification. For in these cases, as we have already seen (p. 274 above),
the co-ordination in the form (XI) is invariably completely otiose and
reduces to the single conjunct. Thus the form (XI) reduces to (XII).
(XII) 3S V s 3B1 3 b Rsb

s(ES bEB I
It is therefore less unnatural to associate this with an account which

only provides the non-co-ordinate representation (in this example, and
unlike the numerical cases, the universal quantification over members of
the set being specified in the lexical entry for every). Thus even the weak
analysis of mixed quantification, which analyses all numerical
quantification in terms of existential quantification, would be compatible
with the non-co-ordinate form (XII) involving universal quantification,
which is the natural form for sentences of this type. 36
Extending the discussion of the mapping problem to all quantified
sentences thus tends to buttress the argument that all quantified sen-
tences have a relatively weak semantic representation, this being in the
case of mixed numerical quantification weaker than almost all uses of it.
It must of course be remembered that the assumption on which dis-
cussion of the mapping problem rests is somewhat dubious. Since we are
assuming an interpretive semantic framework, the judgment that an
analysis be preferred where there is close correspondence between
syntactic and semantic structures is based on grounds of simplicity.
Furthermore, the analysis which appeared to be preferable in this former
set of arguments assigns considerable theoretical weight to the set of
procedures. The doubt about this analysis is the status of the procedures
themselves, and the consequent theoretical issues that arise about the
relationship between the concepts of semantic representation, proposi-
tional interpretation (which corresponds to the output of the pro-
cedures), and pragmatic interpretation in general. It is to this problem that
we turn next.
6. T H E SEMANTICS-PRAGMATICS DIVISION: T H E EVIDENCE OF

N EGATION
We now have for comparison five distinct analyses of mixed

quantification sentences, and the question arises as to the explanatory
value of each of these analyses as part of a linguistic model based on an
assumed dichotomy between a (truth-conditional) semantics and prag-
matics (cf. Kempson 1977 for general background arguments for this
assumption). The surprising conclusion that will emerge from the fol-
lowing discussion is that the maximal ambiguity analysis and the radical
vagueness analysis come together at this point, in placing the greatest
burden of explanation within the semantic model (though in different
ways).
The maximal ambiguity analysis is by now familiar: there is assumed
to be a one-to-one correspondence between the representation of a
proposition and the representation of a sentence. Accordingly, a sen-
tence-string such as (42), Two examiners marked six scripts, which
expresses three, four, or five propositions (depending on whether the
forms (VII) and (XIII) are taken to be separate propositions) is assigned
three, four, or five distinct sentential analyses. A pragmatic theory is
only invoked to explain the non-availability of some of the sentences to
which each sentence-string corresponds. For example (47)
(47) Six kids drank five sips of my beer.
will be predicted by the semantics to have three, four or five distinct
sentential derivations in the grammar, distinct in having the requisite
number of logical forms-the two scope-differentiated representations;
the third the incomplete group reading; possibly a fourth, the complete
group reading, in which each of six kids is said to have had the same five
sips of beer; and even posibly a fifth, in which only one of them actually
drank the beer. It is then the pragmatics which determines why all but
one of these readings are never available for this string.
If the fourth of these interpretations is thought not to be importantly
distinct from the other three, and hence to be derived from one of them
as a special case, we have immediately to incorporate into the maximal
ambiguity analysis either the principle of uniformising or generalising as
subcases of pragmatic strengthening. For to convert either of (IV) or (V)
into (VII) requires uniformising, and to convert (VI) into (VII) requires
generalising. Thus even the analysis of quantifiers which conflicts most
sharply with our proposal of lack of ambiguity at the level of semantic
representation may make some use of our procedures. Moreover if the
very weak use of mixed quantification sentences is recognised as a
distinct (pragmatic) interpretation but not given an independent sen-
tence, then the principle of approximation has also to be incorporated.
Since the simultaneous incorporation of scope ambiguities, the prin-
ciples of uniformising or generalising, and a pragmatic principle of
approximation, is unattractive, we shall assume in what follows that the
maximal ambiguity analysis characterises all truth-conditionally dis-
tinguishable uses of such sentence-strings as distinct sententiai
representations of the sentence-string.
284 R. M. KEMPSON AND A, CORMACK
The restricted ambiguity claim, where ambiguity is proposed only for

the scope-differentiated interpretations (forms (IV) and (V) on p. 270f.
above) involves two distinct derivations and two further interpretations
which might be said to be pragmatic implicatures from either of these
derivations.
When we turn to the third alternative, the general co-ordinate form
(III), proposed as the maximally specific logical form consistent with
each of the scope-differentiated interpretations together with the in-
complete group interpretation, we find that there is a choice to be made
between two explanations of the status of these interpretations. On the
one hand, one might claim that the sentence in question itself only ever
expresses the relatively weak proposition (exemplified by the logical
form (III) postulated for (42) above), and that the more specific inter-
pretations (exemplified by the logical forms (IV)-(VII) (p. 270f. above) are
to be analysed as pragmatic implications. On the other hand, one might
claim that in mixed quantified sentences, we face a type of case more
like indexical sentences, in which the sentence in question, though it has
a single semantic representation itself, is used to express distinct pro-
positions. The former solution appears to have the advantage that the
proposition expressed and the logical form assigned to the sentence
stand in direct correspondence to each other, and the apparent disad-
vantage that the proposition expressed by virtue of the logical form of
the sentence is never MERELY that which is expressed: the implicature
of one or other of the more specific readings must be present. The
second solution has the apparent advantage that the more specific
readings are said to be what is literally expressed by the sentence on
some occasion of use; and it has the apparent disadvantage that the
logical form said to be the semantic representation of the sentence in
question can no longer be said to correspond one-to-one with the
proposition(s) that that sentence is used to express. Indeed, if this
second solution is adopted, we are led to the conclusion that the
semantic representation for sentences can no longer be identified with
logical form, where logical form is defined to be a specification from which
all inferences can be drawn off by general rule. 37 For this level is
provided by the output of the procedures.
In the case of the radical vagueness analysis, this choice between
alternative explanations is clearer: the proposed semantic representation
of the sentence cannot be its total semantic content; for such sentences
differing only in their two numerically quantified expressions will have
semantic representations which differ in their truth conditions only in so
far as the existence claims differ. As pointed out on p. 277f. above, it is
only when the generalising procedure is used to provide universal

quantification over the members of the numerically determined set that
numerically quantified expressions affect the truth conditions on the
predicate itself. Thus under this analysis, the theoretical claim to be
made is in principle clear: according to the evidence presented by
quantified sentences, the semantic account of all sentences of a language
will incorporate two levels, the level of semantic representation and the
level of proposition which is the output of a set of procedures applying
to that representation. A pragmatic account is only required to explain
the circumstances under which the various procedures are chosen or
interpretations rejected. It is for this reason that we suggested earlier
that the closest of the four alternatives in terms of the relative weights
assigned to semantic and to pragmatic interpretation are the maximal
ambiguity analysis and the radical vagueness analysis, for both of these
invoke pragmatics only at the level of predicting what interpretations
arise in context, and not in determining the range of possible inter-
pretations.
We have seen how the four possible analyses differ in the extent to
which they involve use of the procedures of uniformising and generalis-
ing. Of these, only the maximal ambiguity account makes no use of the
procedures at all. If we now look at the interaction of mixed
quantification with negation, we find evidence suggesting that the pro-
cedures are semantic, thus eliminating the restricted ambiguity account
and the pragmatic account of the procedures associated with our initial
vague form, the co-ordinate logical form (1II).
The choice that we have in considering negation is whether negation,
being within semantics, operates before any of the procedures; or
whether it is the procedures that must precede the operation of nega-
tion. 38 If the procedures must apply before negation, then as long as we
retain the logical priority of semantics over pragmatics it is clear that
they too will have to be semantic; 39 whereas if they can apply after
negation to yield the correct range of interpretations, then this leaves
open the possibility of their being pragmatic. Consider first in this
connection a problem which we have barely touched on-the alternation
in interpretation of numerical expressions depending on whether they
are interpreted in an 'at least' sense or an 'exactly' sense.
(48) Justin didn't eat three carrots: he ate four.
This example demonstrates a use of negative sentences in which, as we
shall demonstrate in detail below, it is the strengthened interpretation
only that is denied. This immediately suggests that for this particular
strengthening at least a pragmatic account is incorrect. For under any

pragmatic account of this variation in the interpretation of numbers, the
negation of the strongest interpretation cannot be obtained by the ap-
plication of the same pragmatic rule. The problem can be stated sche-
matically as follows. We have 'P', which may be used to convey 'Q'.
And the evidence presented by examples such as (48) is that '-P' can be
used to convey '-Q'. But this cannot be obtained by the same pragmatic
rule, for where 'Q' entails 'P', we do not have '-Q' entailing '-P'. In fact
we can and do as in this example have '-Q & P'. So whereas when 'P' is
used to mean 'Q', it would indifferently mean 'Q & P ', when '-P' is used to
mean '-Q', it cannot mean '-P & -Q'. In the negative then, we do not have
literally a strengthening, and so it does not fall under normal pragmatic
rules (which add but do not subtract information).
If we now take into account examples involving the other procedures,
we shall see that the formalism itself only predicts the correct results if
all such "strengthening" procedures which restrict the interpretation of
the string in question operate before negation. For purposes of com-
parison, we include examples of generalising, uniformising, strengthen-
ing from 'at least' interpretation to an 'exactly' interpretation, a clear
lexical case of restricted interpretation, and a clear pragmatic example.
What we are attempting to find out is whether the formalisms can
predict the correct range of interpretations either by applying the
strengthening procedure before negation, or by applying it after. All the
examples will be given in the same format. The sentence whose am-
biguity is in question is labelled in each case P. Q is a gloss of its more
restricted sense, and R the negation of that. S is the negation of P, and
T the reading that would be obtained by applying the strengthening rule
to S. We shall confine our attention to logical negation, since we wish to
restrict the problematic variation in interpretations to the cases under
analysis. Consider first in this connection the pragmatic implication from
an utterance of the sentence I'm tired to 'I want to go to bed'. 4° Thus:
P I'm tired.
Q I'm tired and I want to go to bed.
R -(I'm tired and I want to go to bed)
= -(I'm tired) v -(I want to go to bed)
S -(I'm tired)
T -(I'm tired) & -(I want to go to bed) 41
Here R fails to provide the correct interpretation, and it is T, the
application of strengthening after negation, that gives the correct under-
standing of S. An utterance of I'm not tired with an interpretation
analogous to the use of I'm tired to imply also I want to go to bed is

indeed 'I'm not tired and I don't want to go to bed'.
Let us now turn to the 'exactly' procedure, and see more precisely
why a pragmatic account would be incorrect. We shall now assume that
the 'exactly' procedure can be stated informally as follows:
For any proposition of the form '3Sn(...)' where '3S,+,(.. 3'
entails '3Sn(...)'
replace '3S~(...)' by ' 3 S , ( . . . ) & -3S,+1(...)'.
Our initial string, with a logical form which predicts an 'at least'
interpretation, is P:
P Justin ate three carrots.
The strengthened interpretation according to the rule is then Q:
Q Justin ate three carrots &-(Justin ate at least four carrots).
The negation of Q is R. The negation of P is S.
R -(Justin ate three carrots & -(Justin ate at least four

carrots)).
=-(Justin ate three carrots) v Justin ate at least four
carrots.
S -(Justin ate three carrots).
Now if we strengthen S in the manner proposed earlier, 42 we would

predict the existence of the interpretation labelled T:
T -(Justin ate three carrots) & -(-(Justin ate at least four

carrots)).
=-(Justin ate three carrots) & Justin ate at least four
carrots.
In this case it is R that gives the 'exactly' interpretation of the negative
sentence (corresponding to (48) above) and T does not. So the 'exactly'
understanding is either due to a rule in the semantics operating before
negation, or to an ambiguity of the original sentence P. A pragmatic
procedure could not account for the d a t a . 43
Before tackling the complexity of the quantification cases, it is in-
structive to consider the simplest case of entailment dependency be-
tween two interpretations of an item, the lexical restriction of an item
such as dog to have a sex-specific interpretation. The contrast we shall
take is between cat and kitten. The understandings described are most
easily obtained when kitten, the term of contrast, is also mentioned in
288 R. M . K E M P S O N AND A. CORMACK
the discourse, but this is not essential. As before we have a sentence Jo

bought a cat, P, which has a restricted interpretation, Q:
P Jo bought a cat
Q Jo bought a cat & -(Jo bought a kitten)
We then have
R -(Jo bought a cat & -(Jo bought a kitten))
= -(Jo bought a cat) v Jo bought a kitten
S -(Jo bought a cat)
T -(Jo bought a cat) & Jo bought a kitten
Again, the form R is needed, contrary to the Gazdar and Butterworth,
and Gazdar prediction; and T is incorrect.
If we now turn to the principles of uniformising and generalising, we
find a similar pattern: it is only if the procedures apply before negation
that they yield the correct results. Consider example (49):
ONE }
(49) It's not the case that every linguist has read [SOME article on
quantifiers, because they can't possibly all have read the same one. 44
This example requires the interpretation of the negation as a denial of
the stronger interpretation (derived by uniformising) for the explanation
is compatible with the weaker interpretation. In other words, it is the
interpretation in which the numeral, or some, is used to indicate a
specific book, which is denied. The formalism predicts this in the
following way, if we extend our schema of P, Q, R and S to logical
forms. Assuming an alphabetic notation (A: articles on quantifiers,
a E A, L: linguists, l ~ L, R: the predicate corresponding to read), we
have for the positive string Every linguist has read an article on
quantiliers, as before, the initial logical form 45
P 3 L V I 3 A j V a Rla
Q 3L 3AiVlVaRla
R -3L 3A)VlVaRla - V L V A I 31 3 a - R l a
S -3LVl 3 A i V a R l a = VL 31 VAt 3a-Rla.
T, the form which is the result of applying strengthening rules to S is
unobtainable here on the form with negation inside the quantifiers. And
if we apply uniformising to the form of S in which the negation is
external, then this trivially reduces to the relationship between P and R
(viz. applying the procedure first, and then negation). S reads informally
as 'it is not true of all linguists that there's a book that each has read', R
as 'it's not the case that of all linguists and a certain article on quantifiers
that they've all read it'. 46 Thus in the case of uniformising, the only
possible order of application is to apply the procedures, and then
negation. Consider, further, the case of uniformising to relate the scope-
differentiated interpretations of mixed quantification sentences to the
complete group interpretation. If we take a sentence which explicitly
indicates a scope-differentiated interpretation (by the use of each) we
can form an example where the negative sentence is denied on the basis
of the complete group interpretation for a specified reason which is
compatible with the scope-differentiated interpretation:
(50) It's not true that three students hit four girls: because when I
asked who had been hit by three people, there was only
Tanya.
We can see informally in this case too, then, how the procedure of
uniformising must apply first to predict this as a possible interpretation.
In the case of generalising, we have the possibility of an extremely
simple case. Suppose we analyse a generic sentence-string such as A
yellow-hammer sings beautifully as having an initial semantic represen-
tation: 47
P 3Y 3 y S y
One might say that this, on the weakest interpretation, is to be regarded
as a piece of present-tense description (add for example the adverb
outside). The generic interpretation is then derived from it, let us
suppose, by generalising. We then have
Q 3YVySy
R -3Y Vy Sy ---VY 3 y - S y
S -3Y 3y Sy -VYVy-Sy.
In this case, T again is unobtainable; while S and R yield two inter-
pretations of the negative string A yellow-hammer doesn't sing beauti-
fully either as 'if there are any yellow-hammers, there is a yellow-
hammer who doesn't sing beautifully' (R) or as 'of all yellow-hammers,
it is the case that they do not sing beautifully' (S). This example is
hypothetical in so far as this analysis of generics is not independently
motivated here (and may well be incorrect). However if we apply the
results to the relation between the complete and incomplete inter-
pretation of mixed numerical quantification, we find a similar result.
Consider (51):
(51) It's not true that three University College students exchanged
addresses with four Birkbeck College students because no
one University College student gave their address to as

many as four Birkbeck College students.
Here the complete group interpretation is denied, the explanation for the
denial being compatible with the incomplete group interpretation. Here our
sentence P is to be taken in just the incomplete group sense, or as the
complete group sense where strengthened to give Qfl So we have as our
starting point P, the logical form for the incomplete group interpretation: 49
P 3C33B4(Vc 3bEcb & Vb 3cEcb).

This is strengthened by generalising to give the complete group inter-
pretation as Q:
Q 3C33B4VcVbEcb.
As before, the negation of Q is R, and the negation of P is S.
R -3C33B4Vc Vb E c b - V C 3 V B 4 3 c 3b -Ecb
S -3C33B4(Vc 3bEcb & Vb 3cEcb)
- VC3 ¥B4(3c Vb
-Ecb v 3b Vc-Ecb)
T is the result of applying generalising after the application of the
negation rule:
T VC3VB4Vc Vb -Ecb
R reads informally as 'it's not the case that there is a set of three
University College students and a set of four Birkbeck College students
of whom it's true that they exchanged addresses'. S reads as 'for all sets
of three University College students and four Birkbeck students, it's
either the case that there's one University College student who didn't
exchange addresses with any Birkbeck College student, or it's the case
that there's one Birkbeck College student who didn't exchange ad-
dresses with any University College student'. T on the other hand reads
as 'for all sets of three University College students and all sets of four
Birkbeck College students, none of them exchanged addresses'. T is not
the strengthened reading we require; R is.
The general trend of the results then is to show that (i) there are
strengthening procedures which must operate after negation, which
appear properly to belong in pragmatics since they cannot be generated
without access to background sets of beliefs, (ii) there are further data
which can be explained in one of two ways. Either we adopt a vagueness
account, invoking procedures as we have outlined, or we might invoke a
thirteen-fold ambiguity for each sentence corresponding to the distinct

interpretative possibilities (the four interpretations given before plus
(IV), (V), and (VII) strengthened to an 'exactly' interpretation at one or
other or both of the numerals), 5° There is no possible interim restricted
ambiguity position.
Moreover the data of negation can also straightforwardly be applied to
dismiss the maximal disjunctive vagueness account. If we apply nega-
tion directly on the disjunction itself, it gives grossly wrong results with
no possibility of predicting the various appropriate applications of the
negative sentence in question; and if we apply a procedure of 'Drop the
disjuncts' before the application of negation, then the advantage of
invoking a vagueness account rather than ambiguity is entirely dis-
sipated.
7. T HE DEPENDENCY RELATION BETWEEN THE INTERPRETATIONS
We now have only three accounts remaining as contenders for a plaus-

ible analysis of mixed quantification: a maximal ambiguity analysis and
the two vagueness accounts, one in terms of a co-ordinate logical form,
the other-the radical vagueness analysis-involving only existential
quantification in the initial semantic representation. We now turn to the
relationship between the interpretations, and the extent to which these
analyses are able to capture them. There are two separate problems here:
(i) the entailment dependency between some of the interpretations, (ii)
the relationship between those interpretations which are logically in-
dependent. We have already seen good reason to think that cases where
one interpretation of a string entails a second interpretation of that string
should be analysed in terms of a single unspecified semantic represen-
tation rather than two quite distinct semantic representations. Any
analysis of such interpretations in terms of ambiguity simply fails to
capture the appropriate generalisations, and the fact that in all cases the
interpretations have more in common with lack of specification than
they do with ambiguity.
Not only is there the relationship between logically dependent inter-
pretations to characterise, but there is also the relationship between the
so-called incomplete group interpretation and the two scope-differen-
tiated interpretations. Though these three interpretations are logically
independent, it is possible to predict that any sentence-string with two
numerically quantified noun phrases, which allows the incomplete group
interpretation (corresponding to (VI)), MUST also have the correspond-
ing scope-differentiated and complete group interpretations.
As the initial step in the argument, consider a sentence containing a

noun phrase which denotes a single item, where this noun phrase is
interpreted to be the logical subject. In our terminology, this cor-
responds to an interpretation where a procedure such as uniformisation
has yielded a logical form in which the quantifier which represents the
one-member set denoted by the noun phrase in question is at the left
hand end of the formulaJ j Schematically we have
(XXII) 3Sa Vs Ps
where ' S f is the logical subject, and P any suitable predicate. Now there
is no restriction on the particular number involved. So it is always
possible to have a statement of a similar form, where a larger set of
items each individually satisfies the same predicate. This is written
(XXIII) 3S~ Vs Ps where n is a natural number.
The sentence corresponding to this larger set, when its elements are not
specified further as to class-membership, will contain a number in the
noun phrase of the logical subject. For example, if we have An examiner
walked out of the room we can also have Five examiners walked out of
the room; and from the well-formedness of The examiner walked out of
a meeting we can infer the well-formedness of The examiner walked out
of six meetings. In other words, if (XXII) is appropriate as a logical
representation for a one-member set case, we can expect to be able to
use (XXIII) as a representation for a corresponding plural case where the
number involved is some number other than one. Suppose we now apply
this pattern of argument to the logical form (VI), which we have already
argued is the appropriate representation for the incomplete group inter-
pretation for sentence (42):
(VI) 3)(2 3S6(Vx :is Mxs & Vs :Ix Mxs)
Again, of course there is no restriction on what number may appear in

the sentence, so we can change six for one and, further, take the noun
phrase with scripts to be the logical subject of the sentence in the same
way as before. This gives us (XXIV):
(XXIV) :IS1 :IX:(Vx :is Mxs & Vs 3x Mxs),
Just because we now have a one member set $1 and not S,, this reduces
to
(XXV) ~S1 3X2 Vx :is Mxs
But this is logically equivalent to
(XXVa) 3St 3s 3 X z V x Mxs

which may in turn be written as XXVb (again because we have a one
member set).
(XXVb) '~SI VS 3X2Vx Mxs
And now if we use the principle outlined above, whereby any number
can be substituted to yield a well-formed formula, we obtain
(XXVI) 3S6Vs 3X~ Vx Mxs.
But what we have in (XXVI) is exactly the 'object noun phrase with
wide scope' interpretation of sentence (42), namely logical form (V) (p.
271 above), for the sentence in question IS (42). By exactly the same
procedure taking the noun phrase with examiners to be the logical
subject, we can obtain the logical form of (42) which has 'subject noun
phrase with wide scope', logical form (IV). In other words, given the
incomplete group interpretation of a sentence with two numerical
quantifiers, together with the fact that any representation of this inter-
pretation should be equally suitable for a parallel sentence with one of
these numerals replaced by one, we can predict the existence of the
further interpretations by general rules. The interpretation with form
(VI) then does not entail the interpretations corresponding to (IV) and
(V), but it does entail that they will exist, and that they will have a
certain form. So we appear to have a dependency of some sort between
each of the propositional interpretations, which makes them quite unlike
other examples of ambiguity. Clear cases of ambiguity such as Visiting
relatives can be a nuisance and John saw her duck involve quite
arbitrary pairs of interpretations. Moreover in general, ambiguity will not
carry over from language to language. John saw her duck, for example,
cannot be translated into another language and preserve the ambiguity. In
the case of the quantifiers, translation from language to language does
not in general alter the range of interpretations available (cf. Ioup 1975).
Mixed quantification sentences give rise to the same problems in every
language.
Now the analysis of such sentences in terms of maximal ambiguity
will fail to capture any of these generalisations, without the addition of
some extra mechanism. The two alternative vagueness accounts by
contrast are of course able to capture all the above dependencies
between the interpretations. Indeed, they are constructed specifically so
to do. Moreover, like the semantic rule interpreting negation, the pro-
cedures would be predicted to be universal. Thus along this parameter,
either of the vagueness accounts is clearly to be preferred.
294 R, M. K E M P S O N A N D A. C O R M A C K
8. P R E F F E R R E D INTERPRETATIONS: T H E PRAGMATIC M E C H A N I S M
It might be argued that in assigning the procedures a status within

semantic theory, one would be failing to grant the validity of any
pragmatic explanation of why particular interpretations are preferred.
However this would not be a valid argument. For analysing the pro-
cedures as semantic rules does not preclude the possibility of a prag-
matic account of the circumstances under which any of the inter-
pretations (i.e. which of the procedures) is selected. Indeed the radical
vagueness analysis and the maximal ambiguity account are identical in
the extent to which a pragmatic explanation is invoked. Both have an
output of the semantics which is in the form of a set of propositions; so
any pragmatic explanation which applies to the output of the radical
vagueness analysis can automatically be applied in the case of the
ambiguity analysis to select a particular sentential interpretation of the
string in question. Thus in the main nothing hangs on the proposals we
make in this section; and they should be taken as no more than tentative
suggestions.
The problem that we face is that though all mixed quantification
sentences may be argued to be unambiguous, different surface strings
corresponding to the same logical form have clearly different preferred
interpretations. Consider in this connection (52)-(55).
(52) Everyone knows some recipe for cooking chicken.

(53) Some recipe for cooking chicken is known by everyone.
(54) Two journalists have written three books.
(55) Three books have been written by two journalists.
In (54) the interpretations which are unmarked (i.e. preferred) are the
subject having wide scope, the incomplete group and the complete group
interpretations, and these might be represented as follows:
(XXVII) 3J2 Vj 3B3 Vb Wjb

(XXVIII) ]12 3B3(Vj 3b Wjb & Vb 3j Wjb)
(XXIX) 312 3B3 ¥j Vb Wjb.
The one which seems most marked is the interpretation which claims
that there are three books each of which has been written by two
journalists, i.e. with the object having wide scope-(XXX):
(XXX) 3B3 Vb 3J., Vj Wjb.
The preferred interpretations switch with the passive form. In this case
AMBIGUITY AND Q U A N T I F I C A T I O N 295
we have as preferred interpretations the logical form (XXX) plus the

forms (XXXI) (equivalent to (XXIX) above and therefore derivable from
it) and (XXXII) (similarly, equivalent to (XXVIII) above and derivable
from it):
(XXXI) 3B3 3J2 Vb Vj Wjb
(XXXII) 3B~ 3J2(Vb 3j Wjb & Vj 3b Wjb).
The marked interpretation in the case of (55) is (XXVII) above for, as
before, there is no logical form for characterising this interpretation
which has the quantified set corresponding to the surface structure
subject at the left hand end. In each case the leftmost quantified set of
the logical form corresponds to the topic, which gives rise to unmarked
interpretations when this coincides with surface subject, marked inter-
pretations when it does not.
That the topic does indeed coincide with the leftmost quantified set
in the logical form of a proposition is suggested by the disambiguating
paraphrases of the various interpretations:
(56) As for two journalists, they have each written three books.
(57) As for three books, they have each been written by two
journalists.
(58) As for three books, they have as a set been written by two
journalists.
(59) As for two journalists, they have between them written three
books.
(60) As for some recipe for cooking chicken, it's known by
everyone.
So the notation developed for independent reasons now contributes to a

straightforward formal description of topic-viz, the leftmost quantified
set of a logical form of a proposition. The advantage of this formal
characterisation of topic is that it does not commit us to any necessary
connection between topic and background knowledge, nor to any
necessary connection between subject and topic. Moreover, it leads to
the prediction that only those elements of a logical form which can come
to the front are candidates for topic status. This seems to be correct. It
is for example impossible to interpret a noun phrase simultaneously as
the topic and as having a distributed interpretation (in which its exact
extension is dependent on some other quantified noun phrase in the
sentence). The logical form (XX), whatever its problems (cf. p. 277f.),
does not have a distributed interpretation. Thus in the cases of mixed
numerical quantification, the more marked interpretation is invariably

that in which the sentence is assigned an interpretation in which the
quantifier at the left-hand end of the formula does not correspond to the
surface subject.
For (52) and (53) the problem is subtly different. Though (53) seems to
have interpretations at least as distinct as those of (54) and (55), it is
sometimes felt to be harder to separate the two interpretations in the
case of (52). This has been posed as a problem by Keenan (1976, p. 310),
who states in connection with the pair of sentences (61) and (62) (his
examples are numbered (8a) and (Sb)):
(61) Every boy kissed a girl. (8a)

(62) A girl was kissed by every boy. (8b)
"sentence (8b) seems to me more clearly ambiguous according as it was

necessarily the same girl or not. But (8a) seems to me to have only the
reading on which it is not necessarily the same girl (though it might be)".
Our notation and characterisation of topic however provide a straight-
forward explanation of this difference. Since every is always mapped
onto a form in which its logical quantifier includes the other within its
scope (by lexical specification on every cf. p. 282), the initial represen-
tation of (61) according to a maximal vagueness analysis would be
3B Vb 3Gi 3g Kbg.
Generalisation would apply vacuously giving
(a) 3B Vb 3G1Vg Kbg.
Uniformising applies too, yielding
(b) 3B 3G~ Vb Vg Kbg.
Thus (a) and (b) are the only distinct interpretations of (61). In both of
these the surface subject corresponds to the topic, thus for the active
sentence there is no difference in topic structure to keep the two
interpretations distinct. So even on the interpretation represented by (a)
it is possible for the proposition used to describe circumstances which
would have been described by the stronger form (b). However in the
passive, only one of the interpretations has a logical topic which cor-
responds to the syntactic subject. The logical form (b) has an equivalent
form (c) in which the quantifier associated with a girl is the topic:
(c) 3Gt 3B Vg Vb Kbg
But reading (a) can only be obtained if we take the agent (and not the
subject) to be the topic. Thus in virtue of the difference in their topic

structure and its relation to the surface string, we can explain why it is
that these interpretations seem more distinct in (62) than in (61).
In sum, we have defined in a preliminary way a semantic concept of
topic, at the level of proposition, which allows for a prediction about
preferred interpretations which appears to be substantially correct. This
is however ancillary to the main purpose of this paper, since it does not
distinguish between the two main hypotheses under examination, the
maximal ambiguity analysis and the radical vagueness analysis.
9. THE FILTERS
One point of comparison between the three viable alternatives remains

to be discussed. In proposing both the co-ordinate logical form (III) and
the yet weaker logical form (XIII), that of the radical vagueness analy-
sis, we invoked the use of filters in order to account for why it is that
certain interpretations do not arise. In particular a filter was invoked in
proposing the initial co-ordinate logical form for mixed quantification
sentence-strings to exclude an interpretation of the co-ordinate form, the
form for the incomplete group interpretation, in which the two sets of
variables were interpreted as ranging either over different sets of in-
dividuals, or in a different way over the same set of individuals (cf. fn.
26 p. 273 above). However a different filter was required in the case of
the radical vagueness analysis to exclude a logical form with existential
quantification over individuals including a universal quantifier within its
scope. This form, (XX), is repeated here for convenience:
(XX) 3X23S~(3xVsMxs & 3sVxMxs).

Though there is nothing ill-formed about (XX), it does not correspond to
an interpretation of such a mixed numerical quantification string which
can be significantly distinct, and it must therefore be filtered out at some
level. Finally, if the logical form (XIII) is to be excluded at the pro-
positional level (the output of the procedures), then an additional filter is
required.
At this level of comparison, it might then seem as though both
vagueness analyses are burdened with ad-hoc filters, while the maximal
ambiguity analysis has the advantage of not requiring any such filters. At
a superficial level this may be true. But the maximal ambiguity analysis
offers no principled way of explaining why just the particular inter-
pretations that we have considered arise in a wide range of languages
(and possibly universally). If it were to make explicit a procedure for
298 R.M. KEMPSON AND A. C O R M A C K
determining the logical forms for such sentence-strings, and allow as a

possible logical form any form stateable which in a given notation
describes as strongly as possible the circumstances under which that
string can be said to be true, then it too would have to incorporate the
filter to exclude the form (XX). Moreover should such a move be made
within an analysis in terms of maximal (sentential) ambiguity, notice that
the filter would have a quite different status from those operating upon
propositions within a vagueness account; for in an ambiguity account
the filter would have to exclude an entire sententiai derivation. The filter
is a direct consequence of attempting to state the exact range of
interpretations available for mixed quantification sentence-strings, and
the relationship between those interpretations.
Supposing therefore we now take for granted the necessity of invok-
ing some filters in order to characterise explicitly the nature of the
mapping between the initial semantic representation of the sentence and
its more specific interpretations, two alternative explanations are avail-
able: the filters may be semantic, or they may be pragmatic. If they are
said to be semantic, they may seem to be an arbitrary means of
guaranteeing the correct set of interpretations of mixed quantification
sentence-strings. However, if they are analysed as pragmatic, operating
on the output of the semantic model, then the forms to be excluded will
be assigned the semantic status of propositions expressible by those
sentences, even though they are never possible as interpretations of any
such sentence-string. This is theoretically undesirable since there are
strong reasons for wanting to constrain the concept of a proposition
expressed by a sentence to that which is expressed by the speaker in
some context of utterance. In any case, there appears to be no pragmatic
explanation available for at least one of the filters. The logical form
(XX), which is derived by the procedures from (XIII), is not in any way
incoherent or inappropriate as a message. It simply does not seem to be
isolatable as a distinct interpretation. There seems to be no basis for a
pragmatic explanation here. In the case of the filter required to constrain
the mapping of the co-ordinate form (III) onto the form for the in~
complete group interpretation ("no multiple logical status for the noun
phrase", fn. 26 above), such a constraint is solely a consequence of the
extensive syntax-semantics mapping problem that this analysis faces,
though it is plausible enough. If we adopt the radical vagueness analysis,
the problem and the filter disappear. In the case of the very weak form
(XIII) associated with this analysis, it is not clear whether it should be
allowed as a possible proposition. Thus for example, it is not clear
whether Five examiners marked six scripts is necessarily false if one of
the examiners did nothing at all. If it is considered to be true under these

circumstances, then no filter is required, but a pragmatic explanation
should presumably be constructed as to why this is such a marked
interpretation. If it is considered false, the analysis will require the
addition of a filter plus application of some approximation principle as
before to explain why this sentence can be appropriately used in such
circumstances. Furthermore it is only plausible to consider the filter
semantic. We shall therefore propose that the semantic mapping be-
tween the initial semantic representation and the logical forms of the
propositions (the interpretations of the sentence-string in question) in-
volves both a set of procedures and a set of filters. As in the case of the
procedures, the fact that the filters are assigned semantic status does not
preclude an explanation of their use in pragmatic terms. 52
10. CONCLUSIONS
In the opening sections of this paper, we defined ambiguity in terms of

distinct sentences (for a single sentence-string) with, in particular, dis-
tinct sets of truth conditions for the corresponding negative sentence-
string. Lexical vagueness was defined as equivalent to disjunction, for
under conditions of the negation of a sentence-string containing such an
expression, all the relevant more specific interpretations of the string
had also to be negated. Yet in the case of mixed quantification sen-
tences, the strengthened, more specific, interpretations of some such
positive string are not all of them necessarily implied to be false if the
corresponding negative sentence-string is asserted. On the contrary, as
we saw in section 6, a negative sentence-string can be used to deny one
of the more specific interpretations of the corresponding positive string
without also denying other weaker interpretations of that same string.
One might therefore argue that the only empirical evidence available for
assessing quantified sentences suggests clearly that these sentence-
strings are ambiguous. Indeed logicians, many of whom restrict their
attention to propositions, MUST recognise logical ambiguity at this
point. For the contextualisation of the negative sentences in section 6
showed that it was possible to assert the falsity of some proposition
P expressed by the sentence S while asserting a further proposition which
was compatible with the truth of S. However the corresponding conclusion
that such sentence-strings are sententially ambiguous is not a necessary
conclusion for the linguist: for the alternative account of postulating a
single semantic representation plus a set of semantic procedures is also
compatible with the negation evidence. Moreover we have seen in-
300 R.M. KEMPSON A N D A. C O R M A C K
dependent reasons for thinking that if sentential ambiguity is assumed to be

in one-to-one correspondence with what we should now call logical
ambiguity, a considerable body of generalisations is lost. For the maximal
ambiguity account, it should be recalled, is committed to assigning at least
thirteen distinct propositions and hence thirteen distinct sentence outputs
for every sentence-string containing no more than two quantifiers, for three
out of the four interpretations originally outlined in this paper can be
understood with each numeral taken either in an 'exactly' sense or in an 'at
least' sense. Moreover there is no explanation of why just these inter-
pretations are available-they are merely an arbitrary list, no more
connected than are the two interpretations of John saw her duck, with no
reason to predict that the ambiguity would carry over from language to
language. If then it is granted that an ambiguity account fails to capture
appropriate generalisations, only two alternative accounts of mixed
quantification sentence-strings remain viable- an analysis proposing an
initial co-ordinate logical form like the logical form III, which is the
strongest form compatible with each of the propositional interpretations of
sentence-string Two examiners marked six scripts, and the radically weak
form in which only existential quantification (both over sets and over
members of those sets) is invoked. Since there are strong arguments to
suggest that the procedures which both analyses require are semantic,
there seems no reason not to adopt the radical vagueness account, with its
considerably greater simolicity.
Throughout this comparison of alternative analyses, we have restric-
ted the discussion to the theoretical mechanisms required by any one of
the possible alternatives to predict the full range of uses of mixed
quantification sentences. In selecting the vagueness analysis: 3 we are
forced to the conclusion that the traditional conception of truth con-
ditions is correct: truth conditions are stated over propositions, and not
(or at least not solely) over sentences. The semantic representation
proposed for mixed quantification sentence-strings is only an entailment
of the truth conditions of each of its interpretations, but it does not fully
specify any one of these. While philosophers will not find this result
disconcerting, the linguist faces the conclusion that the semantic
generalisations to be made about sentence meaning cannot be stated
directly in terms of truth conditions, despite the recent assumptions in
much linguistic semantics that this is so) 4 However if the vagueness
analysis is even in outline correct, then the philosopher too is required to
recognise that the level of proposition is not the only level required in a
semantic theory of natural language if the general properties of
quantified sentences are to be explained) 5
The semantic model which we are thus advocating as essential if all

the requisite generalisations about the interpretation of natural-language
sentence-strings are to be captured, is one in which for every sentence
output of the grammar, there is a two-level semantic characterisation-a
semantic representation of the sentence, and a semantic specification of
each of the propositions which that sentence may express, with rules
stating explicitly the nature of the relations between the two. The
semantic component of a formal linguistic model will, then, have to
incorporate three different types of rule: rules mapping syntactic struc-
tures onto semantic representations (involving interaction with the lexi-
con), semantic transformations - viz. the various procedures, and filters.
With this model to hand, we can now see how the interaction between
the linguistic characterisation of a sentence and logical ambiguity is
entirely systematic. Ambiguity in the logical sense arises from inter-
action between each of the three available components of the grammar
and phonology: (i) from the lexicon with a mapping of unrelated lexical
items onto the same phonological sequence; ~6 (ii) from the syntactic
component with distinct syntactic mappings for a single phonological
string; (iii) from the semantic component with distinct semantic trans-
formations for a single phonological string. Within this model, it does
not arise from syntax-semantics mapping rules. Both lexical ambiguity
and syntactic ambiguity give rise to arbitrary, unrelated pairs. Only in
the case of the semantic transformations do we get systematic, or
non-arbitrary, logical ambiguity. If the model suggested by our analysis
is to be convincing, this pattern should apply throughout the data. We
would therefore predict that any case of systematic non-arbitrary am-
biguity will have a characterisation like that assigned to quantifiers here,
in terms of an initial single semantic representation and procedures
operating upon that representation.
School of Oriental & African Studies

University of London
FOOTNOTES
* This paper has been transformed through several versions. The critical comments which
have triggered these transformations have been provided by J. Atlas, C. E. Bazell, G.
Gazdar, F. Heny, R. A. Hudson, H. Kamp, R. Kibble, E. Klein, A. Mittwoch, G. K.
Pullum, R. H. Robins, N. V. Smith, N. Tennant, D. Wiggins, D. Wilson, and two anonymous
reviewers. To each of these we offer many thanks. We are particularly grateful to Jay Atlas for
his extensive discussion by post of many of the issues raised in this paper.
t We are taking the term proposition to correspond to that which is asserted on some
occasion of use, and not to the definition in which it corresponds to the sense of a
sentence. In other words, we are assuming that reference is assigned to all referring
expressions at the level of propositions. The theoretical term sentence we distinguish from the
pre-theoretical term sentence-string. A sentence is an output of the grammer, a triple complex
of syntactic, semantic and phonological information. A sentence-string is an uninterpreted
surface sentential sequence.
2 For convenience, the logical notation of lexical items such as student, book, read, etc.,
will be taken to be a predicate represented by the initial letter of a word from the phrase in
question. Thus in this case, L denotes the set of linguistic students, B books by Chomsky,
R predicate corresponding to read.
3 For an independent argument that mixed quantification sentences are not ambiguous, cf.
Katz 1977, pp. 127-9.
4 A similar account of belief contexts, in which a unitary logical form is assigned to the
sentences in question, with truth conditions partly determined at the level of logical form,
and partly at the level of contextual interpretation, is given by Gee 1978. A two-level
model of semantics is furthermore advocated in recent work by Chomsky (cf. Chomsky
1975), and our analysis is directly compatible with such an approach.
5 A consequence of this definition of sentence is that linguistic ambiguity arises in one of
three ways: (i) where a single phonological representation requires two syntactic charac-
terisations, each with a distinct semantic characterisation, (ii) where a single phonological
representation requires only a single syntactic analysis, but two distinct semantic
representations, (iii) where a single phonological representation requires only a single
semantic analysis, but two distinct syntactic characterisations.
Our use of the term vagueness is for convenience only. This use is not to be confused
with the application of the term vague to indeterminacy at borderlines (fuzzy sets, etc.).
7 We are assuming for simplicity that (2) is only two-ways ambiguous.
8 We are assuming, at least initially, that the semantic representation of a sentence can be
associated with the logical form for that sentence.
9 It might be suggested that using contradiction data as even partial evidence of semantic
ambiguity is entirely circular since the decisions about contradictoriness are no less
theoretical than those about ambiguity. However, even if we assume for present purposes
that such a criticism is not based merely on Quinean scepticism (cf. Kempson 1977 for a
discussion of Quine's critique of linguistic semantics), we would maintain that such an
approach is no less nihilistic than Quine's own attack. For if all the data the theoretical
model is set up to predict are themselves merely theoretical constructs then we would be
forced to say that whether the data the theory predicts themselves exist at all depends on
the theory and varies from theory to theory. This reduction of semantics to a branch of
theoretical aesthetics seems to us quite unjustified. In order for a sentence to be
contradictory it must not only be false but necessarily false. And about this, we would
claim, speakers can (be led to) have clear intuitions. This is not to say that the data are
always clearcut: indeed one would anticipate a cline of responses varying from clear
non-contradictoriness and non-ambiguity at the one end of the scale, to clear contradic-
toriness upon an interpretation at the other, with unclear judgments arising in precisely
those cases where a sentence-string expresses distinct propositions without involving
sentence ambiguity. Consider for example sentences containing indexical expressions, and
the problematic semantic status of He is ill and he is not ill. Hence any indeterminacy over
the data of contradictoriness is in our view not grounds for reducing contradiction to a
concept which is not open to direct empirical test.
~0 We do not wish in our use of this example to imply any commitment to decomposition of
lexieal meaning.
i1 Cf. Gazdar 1979b for one specification of the mapping from lexical disjunction into
sentential disjunction.
12 Cf. Gazdar 1979a, pp. 81-3 for an application of this test to the putative ambiguity of or.
~3 Examples such as Not all banks are riverbanks we consider to be special cases, since
any analysis which treated them as not exceptional would make incorrect predictions
about every sentence containing an ambiguous lexical item invoking only one inter-
pretation at a time, which is the normal case.
~4 We can in fact show that such ambiguity must consist in a correspondence between one
sentence-string and more than one sentence output of the grammar. For it is not possible
to use any of the logical connectives to create a single logical form out of the logical forms
of the two interpretations, from which to predict the contradiction data of an ambiguous
sentence-string, while also satisfying the negation facts. If we were to provide a single
logical form to characterise ambiguous sentence-strings, we would be asking for a
connective'*' such that if S is assigned a logical form 'A*B', then -S must be assigned a
form '-(A'B)'. Of the eight possible truth-tables, two have this property, but they are those
corresponding to A (independent of B) and B (independent of A).
~5 Cf. Atlas 1977 where it is argued that these cases do fall under the general rule.
~6 We are using 'fi' as the symbol for exclusive disjunction.
~7 The truth conditions of P v Q if P entails Q are identical to the truth conditions for Q
alone, as witness the following truth-table:
P Q PvQ
l T T T
2
3 F T T
4 F F F
The second line of the standard table is ruled out by the entailment relation.
18 For our notation, cf. p. 274.
~9 Though the notation we employ is non-standard in employing restricted variables, it
could in all cases be reduced to the standard calculus employing only unrestricted
variables. The disadvantage of so doing is that the formulae become inordinately long; and
any such form is so cumbersome that it becomes extremely hard to understand the relation
between the logical form and the interpretations that entail it.
2o Numerical expressions sometimes allow an 'at most' interpretation, as in Jo got three
coconuts in five shots. Such interpretations have not been taken into consideration in this
paper, since their formulation seems to require the use of ordered sets, which suggests that
such interpretations have to be handled separately.
21 We shall shortly see that there is evidence to suggest that a non-co-ordinate logical form
is plausible as the semantic representation of sentences of this type, but it is even weaker.
(III) is the strongest form available which is compatible with each of the interpretations
(IV-VII).
22 The general form has been cast to correspond as closely as possible to the various
interpretations. There is an equivalent formulation which appears to correspond more
closely to the gloss given:
:tX2 V x 3 sMxs & 3S6 ¥ s 3 xMxs.
xEX 2 sES 6 sES 6 x~X 2
This notational variant seems less amenable to explanations of how the readings are
obtained; and provided that a notation is well adapted for expressing what is required, it
seems reasonable to demand uniformity of representation, even where simpler versions of
some expressions exist. Furthermore, it is not obvious that this variant should be
considered well-formed.
23 For (IV), (V) and (VII) the paraphrase may contain 'at least'. For (VI), it may not. This
can be deduced from the logical forms; 'at least' is available as an entailment for some
304 R.M. KEMPSON AND A. C O R M A C K
proposition 'P~' with numerical quantifier ' n ' just if 'Pn+: entails 'P~'. The condition does
not hold for (VI).
24 We might in fact use the sentence T w o examiners marked the same six scripts to express
(VII). Intuitively, same asserts the identity of a set of six scripts marked by the first
examiner and a set of six scripts marked by the other. In other words, even where the
logical form is undoubtedly (VII), there could be arguments for deriving it from (IV).
25 The concept of reference we are invoking is somewhat broader than the classical
restriction that reference can only be said to hold between logical proper names and the
objects they are used to make assertions about. Reference, in the sense required for our
purposes, is the relation which holds between a noun phrase and the object (or set of
objects) denoted by that noun phrase that the sentence could be taken to be making an
assertion about, on any occasion of use.
26 In fact the constraint is not quite as simple as stated. In order to exclude all of (VIII-X),
and (III) itself, as possible understandings of sentence (42) as predicted by the procedures
in question, we have to stipulate that a single quantified noun phrase must be understood
as having a single logical interpretation. In these cases, it either has one simple reference
assignment, or it has a single distributed application (whose exact extension is dependent
on some other quantified expression of the sentence into whose scope it falls). A noun
phrase cannot have two separate reference assignments ($6 in (VIII), X2 and $6 in (X), X2 in
(IX)), nor can it have a mixed interpretation (3(2 in (VIII), $6 in (IX)). In all these cases the fact
that the representation (III) is a representation of a sentence with single noun phrases (for X2
and $6) requires the hearer to apply the procedures until he has a representation which is a
possible representation of the use intended of the sentence. It is not sufficient that he has
representation of a proposition derived from the sentence.
27 It has been suggested to us that the fact that surface structures containing a lexical item
such as every are invariably assigned a representation in which the set whose members are
universally quantified over is always to the left of a set whose members are existentially
quantified over, implies that the logic not only incorporates scope distinctions but also that it is
itself restricted to generate only this sequence of quantifiers. It cannot therefore be equivalent
to standard logic. This is not so. The logic allows free combination of quantifiers, and in all
cases, the formulae can be restated in the much more cumbersome standard form. In the case
of the universal quantifying expressions every, each, all, etc., a mapping restriction can be
stated in the lexical characterisation of each of these items to guarantee the position of their
associated universal quantifiers in any logical form. In the case of numerical quantifiers, we
shall find that the sequence
3X~ 3 x3Ym V yMxy
is excluded by a different mechanism, that of a filter. In no case are we advocating

restrictions on the logic itself.
We are assuming pro tern that the indefinite article, the singular use of some, and the
number one, are semantically identical; and that an NP with every involves existential
quantification over a set, and universal quantification over the members of that set. This
logical form should not be taken as indicating a final analysis of this type of sentence. In
particular we do not wish by this form to imply our commitment either to the ambiguity of
some between some and sin, as is consistent with this analysis (cf. Bolinger 1960, and
Butterworth and Gazdar 1977), or to the semantic identity of some, one, a, or to any
necessarily existential commitment in the semantic analysis of noun phrases containing
every. Alternatives might involve universal quantification over the set for every, and
dropping the numerical subscript from the existential quantification over the set in the case
of a and some. A final decision on these matters would involve a detailed analysis of the
semantic properties of every, each, and all, on the one hand, and of one, some, a, and the
distinction between singular and plural on the other.
29 There is an alternative ambiguity account which does not grant this: cf. p. 279f. below.
3o In our terms, this is straightforward. For each quantified expression in the string, there
is a conjunct in which its logical quantifier is both initial in that conjunct and takes the form
"3X, Vx', with all other quantification taken to be existentially quantified, i.e. '3 Y, 3y'. This
extends to three or more quantified expressions.
3~ The question remains as to whether it is true. This is taken up again on p. 298f. below.
32 S = set of students, as before s E S; P = set of papers, p ~ P; T is the predicate letter
corresponding to took.
33 We can obtain form (VII) directly by using the generalising procedure twice on the form
(XIII), readings (IV) and (V) by using it twice on forms (XIV) and XVII respectively,
which are equivalent to (XIII),
(XIV) 3X~ 3 x 3S~ 3 s Mxs
xEX 2 ~ES 6
(XVII) 3S~ 3 s 3X2 3 x Mxs

x~S~, xCX 2
and reading (VI) by generalising twice at the quantifiers marked with a star on the
equivalent form (XVIII):
(XVIII)::IX23S6( 3 x* 3 sMxs & 3 s* 3 xMxs)

x~X 2 s~S 6 x~S 6 x~X~
34 It may also be suggested that the semantics should produce just the two scope-
differentiated readings by one kind of procedure, and the complete and incomplete group
readings plus any weaker interpretations which are taken to be required, by the use of
some device whereby the predicate takes groups (i.e. sets) as arguments. That sets are
needed for some predicates is indisputable (e.g. extinct, similar), and there are also
predicates where there is a "together" understanding, e.g. These three pots of jam
(together) weigh more than three pounds. But even for these cases, some analysis in terms
of individuals will be necessary to predict the difference between the sentence-pairs Three
of my chairs are similar, Two of my chairs are similar and Three of my pots o[ jam
(together) weigh more than three pounds, Two of my pots of jam (together) weigh more
than three pounds. We consider that in all cases, in principle it will he necessary not just to
give a set as an argument but to show just how the predicate as applied to individuals
contributes to the truth value of the predicate as applied to sets. And for the examples
considered in the main text, this is just what the incomplete group reading does, for it is
essentially a statement about sets, and is not reducible to a conjunction of statements
about the individuals of the set as the other readings are. In the case of predicates such as
extinct and weigh, it might be argued that any such further analysis should be by meaning
postulates rather than within the logic, but in the case of numerals this lexical option
would be quite unjustified. It has been suggested to us that a sentence such as 5 boys
destroyed 6 flower-beds has a group interpretation which poses a serious problem for
the radical vagueness analysis, since we cannot necessarily infer from this sentence even
that one boy destroyed one flower-bed. All we can infer is that at least some boys
contributed to the destruction of some flower-beds. Thus even the very weakest of the
logical forms proposed under this analysis (parallel to (XIII)) appears to be in some sense
too strong. This phenomenon is common to a set of verbs (linish, destroy, write, paint, kill,
etc.) which we might loosely term "agent-accomplishment predicates". In our view, these
predicates do not lead to the conclusion that quantification over individuals should be
abandoned in favour of quantification over sets taken as primitives. On the contrary, we
suggest that a predicate paraphraseable as "contributed to the destruction of" (given
above) provides the correct basis for the semantic analysis of destroy, even for singular
cases. More generally, there is evidence to suggest that all such predicate expressions should
have a semantic analysis not in terms of the agent carrying out the action in question, but,
rather, in terms of the agent contributing to the effected action. Consider the verb write, a
paradigm example of this class of verbs:
(i) Hans wrote the article.
(ii) Hans wrote the article, with Jerry's help.
(iii) Hans was the sole author of the article.
(iv) Hans was the sole author of the article, with Jerry's help.
If the verb write is given a semantic analysis such that (i) and (iii) are predicted to be
mutually entailing, then (ii) and (iv) are incorrectly predicted to be synonymous and both
contradictory. If on the other hand we analyse a string of the form X wrote Y as implying
' X contributed to the action of writing Y', we have available a straightforward Gricean
explanation for why the expression is normally understood as implying that (when X is
singular) the object denoted by X is the sole contributor towards the action of 'writing Y'
(cf. Harnish 1976 for a detailed defence of this view). It might be argued against this
analysis that Hans didn't write the article has similarly distinct uses, thus suggesting
genuine ambiguity. For this sentence has not only the interpretation corresponding to the
standard external negation paraphrase, but also a paraphrase 'It was not Hans alone who
wrote the article', as in Hans didn't write the article: it was Hans A N D Jerry that wrote it.
But, as we shall see in section 6, this behaviour under negation is identical to the behaviour
of quantifiers under negation and is subject to exactly the same explanation as offered
there.
35 Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber have pointed out to us (personal communication) that
one might treat some of these examples as sub-cases of hyperbole, for which they have
proposed an explanation in terms of the expression in question being mentioned rather
than used (cf. Sperber and Wilson forthcoming (b)). Such an analysis might indeed explain
why there is no logically recoverable route from the strong interpretation to this very weak
use.
36 We are not extending the discussion of approximate uses of sentences containing
quantifiers such as every, all and each, whose lexical entry dictates the use of universal
quantification in the propositions. In cases where only such quantifiors are used, weak uses
of the quantifiers corresponding to the extremely weak use of numerical quantification
seem to be excluded. Every/each student knocked at my door can only mean that they all
individually knocked at my door. All students knocked at my door is scarcely acceptable,
suggesting that it is necessarily genetic. In our terms, one of several alternative pos-
sibilities might be to assign all a lexical specification which contains universal
quantification without existential quantification over a set. Hence the possibility of
combining all with a definite noun phrase which involves quantification over a set-that we
have all the men but not every the men. Whatever the correct analysis, weak uses only
arise in such cases, when the quantifiers are able to combine with definite noun phrases.
Thus (i) and (ii) contrast with (iii):
(i) Each student organised a party.
(ii) Every student organised a party.
(iii) All the students organised a party.
It is only in the third case that interpretations arise corresponding to the group inter-
pretations and the very weakest use of all, in which not all of them need have done the
organising. Since we have not included any discussion of definite noun phrases, we shall
have nothing more to say about this here.
37 Cf. Kempson 1977 for a detailed attempt at justifying the extension of the term logical
[orm to sentences.
3s The temporal sequence is of course not to he taken necessarily literally.
39 It has been pointed out to us that there is no reason in principle why pragmatic and
semantic procedures should not alternate. However. since procedures must (as we shall
see below) be distinguished into those applying before and those applying after negation.
we shall assume that it is proper to label the former semantic, and that all pragmatic
procedures fall among the latter.
40 This "strengthening" can be derived from an appropriate set of background assumptions
by normal logical procedures: cf. Sperber and Wilson forthcoming (a).
4~ This pattern for strengthening after negation, viz. from -P to -P & -Q, is adopted for
two reasons: (i) just as a strengthening before negation gives an interpretation with a
greater number of entailments, so a strengthened interpretation after negation should exclude
more: (ii) the alternative of strengthening negation by transforming -P into -P & Q gives
incorrect results in all cases.
42 An account of this type of strengthened use of a sentence to give a more restricted
interpretation is formulated by Butterworth and Gazdar (1977) as a sub-specification of
Grice's (1975) maxim of quantity in the following terms: "'Utterance of a sentence d,
typically implies that the speaker thinks that it is not the case that tp if (i) ~ is the result of
substituting an expression ~ for one occurrence of an expression/3 in d,, (ii) a and/3 are
intersubstitutable i.e. they have exactly the same selectional restrictions, (iii) ~ entails d,,
and (iv) ~ does not entail ~." In Gazdar's more precise formulation (1979: p. 58f), negative
environments are explicitly excluded. We take it that this is intended to predict that in
negative environments, there are no scalar implicatures. There are three alternative
approaches to the inter-action between scalar implications, pragmatics and negation:
(i) In negative environments, the Gricean principle itself would suggest that where
entails 4~, ~b implicates neg-~0; and on the same basis, since neg-~b entails neg-~, neg-~
should implicate neg-neg-dp-i.e. ~b. On the one hand, this prediction is in general incorrect;
and on the other hand it predicts that Justin didn't eat three carrots might implicate that
Justin ate two carrots, whereas what is required is an implicature relating to four carrots.
(ii) Apply the strengthening procedure before negation. This yields what we have as R.
(iii) Allow the strengthening procedure to apply "blind" in negative environments. In other
words, in any environment with ' . . . :IS,(...)', the sentence is predicted to have an
interpretation ' . . . 3 S , ( . . . ) & -... 3S,+~(...)'. This is what we have used for T, parallel to
the construction of T in the 'I am tired/l want to go to bed' example.
43 The only remaining alternative is to postulate for such data a new pragmatic negation
operator (as suggested informally by Horn (1976 p. 70f. and Wilson 1975 pp. 149-151). In
our view, this solution is an admission of defeat: in our analysis, the required predictions
can be made using one operator, standard negation. If our analysis is correct, any
exclusively pragmatic account of scalar implicatures must be incorrect.
Capital letters are used to indicate heavy stress. Cf. p. 296f. for a pragmatic explanation
of why this interpretation is hard to iso/ate. It appears to be possible only if heavy stress is
assigned to the quantifying expression itself. In any case, if this assertion is judged
unacceptable, the problems posed for the various ambiguity and vagueness accounts are
identical.
4, For clarity, in all the logical forms that follow, we have omitted the restriction under the
quantifier. In any case the variable is to be taken to range over the set indicated by the
matching upper case letter.
It "s easiest to read off the understanding of R from the form in which the negation is
external to the quantifiers.
47 y : the set of yellow-hammers, y ~ Y; S: the predicate corresponding to sing.
48 This is to use this particular test at an arbitrary point so far as our main contentions are
concerned. However, it should give valid results as far as identifying logical ambiguity is
concerned. If negation precedes strengthening, here, there would be an anomaly to explain,
since on our hypothesis either generalising or uniformising has taken place already.
49 C: the set of University College students, c ~ C; B: the set of Birkbeck College

students, b E B; E: the predicate corresponding to exchange.
50 The only interpretation which is excluded from such alternation is the incomplete group
interpretation, (VI), because it does not meet the condition necessary. Cf. the formulation
of the 'exactly' procedure on p. 287, and also fn. 23.
5t Cf. p. 295 where it is suggested that topic is to be defined as the leftmost quantified
expression in a propositional formula.
52 It has been pointed out to us that we face a genuine counterexample in An even number
o[ Americans visited an even number of Russians since a sentence such as this displays the
same vacillation of interpretations as mixed numerical sentences, and yet our analysis
predicts falsely that this sentence is true if three Americans visited five Russians, since
there is a subset of each of which this is true. Our response is first to assert that this
sentence is indeed true under the given circumstances. That being said, there is a natural
account which explains why such a string is always used to imply a stronger interpretation
than the meaning of the sentence literally implies. The proposition that would be expressed
by the form assigned to this string would be satisfied whatever the numbers of people
involved (except for the single case of the number being one). Thus the literal inter-
pretation of the sentence is invariably trivial. There is therefore an obligatory invocation of
a strengthening principle, in this case the 'exactly' procedure introduced earlier. The details
of this application are not relevant here, and so will not be given. However it should be
pointed out that in order to obtain the correct results it is necessary to obtain a form like
(IV), (V), or (VII) before the application of the 'exactly' procedure.
53 Heny 1970 gives an account of the range of possible interpretations of mixed
quantification sentences within a model-theoretic semantics without invoking scope am-
biguity, and his is therefore a formal statement of a position not alien to our own. However
his solution requires an ordering of the individuals within one set relative to the individuals
in a second set (for a sentence containing two quantified noun phrases) prior to a statement
of the truth rule for quantifiers. But an ordering of this sort seems to imply that there is a
cognitive (i.e. pragmatic) triggering to the formal characterisation of the semantic rules.
Furthermore, on the one hand it seems preferable to couch an explanation in a standard
notation if possible; on the other hand, it is not obvious to us how Heny's system could
yield the incomplete group interpretation.
54 For an exception to this general trend, cf. Atlas 1978 who argues that the semantic
representation of negative sentences does not correspond to the logical form of their
interpretations.
~ It is interesting to notice in this connection that within a game-theoretic semantics, a
plausible account can be formulated for mixed quantification strings, using an initial
representation much like our very weak representation (XIII), with game moves analogous
to our procedures. We are grateful to Neil Tennant for demonstrating this to us.
f6 Here too the strengthened interpretations of items such as dog could be characterised.
Cf. Kempson 1980 for a preliminary consideration of the problems caused by these
interpretations, and for arguments that it is only items such as dog that constitute genuine
cases of polysemy.
REFERENCES
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R U T H M.

AMBIGUITY AND QUANTIFICATION*

(2) John saw her duck.

(4) Three examiners marked six scripts.

Linguistics and Philosophy 4 (1981) 259-309. 0165-0157/81/0042-0259 $05.10.

are derived by applying general rules. Thus we shall be proposing a

Much recent literature on sentence ambiguity (cf. Zwicky and Sadock

negation of an entailment of the other interpretation. Consider for

Of these, (6)-(14) are not contradictory strings but merely contradictory

distinct interpretations in use is an explanation of how such distinct

(25) John saw her move.

If we maintain this assumption of no ambiguity, the only simple sen-

(31) John exists.

principles. Moreover, the alternative of specifying the two inter-

3. QUANTIFIED SENTENCES: WHY PROPOSE NO AMBIGUITY?

The cases traditionally considered in the literature are sentences

(34) Every linguistics student has read a book by Chomsky. ( = (1)

(38) Every linguistics student has read a book by Chomsky:

I Sue has read Reflections on Language, Max Syntactic

of why the preferred interpretations of the sentences vary. Before

(43) John was supervising six students working on two projects.

(44) At the time, John was supervising six students working on

are rather simply unspecified semantically as to the nature of this

No proposed analysis is attractive unless it is feasible. The next step is

tions between this representation and its interpretations corresponding

(42) Two examiners marked six scripts.

X2={x~,x2} where x~#x2 and X2CX.

Let the set of scripts be S.

(III) 3X2 V x 3 S 6 3 s Mxs & 3S6 V s 3X2 3 x Mxs.

(IV) 3X2 V X :::]86 V S Mxs subject NP with wide scope.

(V) 3S6 V s 3)(2 V x Mxs object NP with wide scope.

(VI) ~X2~$6( Vx2x 3 s Mxs & V s 3 x Mxs )

incomplete group interpretation.

(VII) 3X2 3S6 V x V s Mxs complete group interpretation.

the two examiners happens to cover 'both the examiners', or where

Replace ' 3 x' by ' V' 'generalising'.

It is this procedure of generalising an existential quantifier which also

form (IV), the second part of (III) becoming redundant. Similarly,

(VIII) ~X2~$6 V x 3 sMxs & ~$6 ~ S 3X2 3 x M x s .

Alternatively the procedure could be applied to the second conjunct giving

(IX) 3X: V x3S6 3 s M x s & 3S63X2 V s 3 x Mxs.

From (VIII), we ~obtain the complete group interpretation, (VII), if we

(X) ~ X2 3S6 V x 3 s Mxs & 3S6~X2 ~ s ~ x Mxs.

This is equivalent to (VI) (the incomplete group interpretation), if we

procedure of uniformisation proposed for the mixed numerical cases.

(XI) 3 S V s 3B1 3 b Rsb & 3B1 V b 3S 3 s Rsb.

In this particular case (because the second noun phrase involves a

(XII) 3S V s 3BI 3 b Rsb.

This form (XII) is subject to both the procedure of uniformisation and

5. THE MAPPING PROBLEM

(XIII) BX2 BS6 B x B s Mxs.

If this form can be independently motivated, then the mapping problem

(XIV) 3X2 3 x3S6 3 sMxs

thus reducing the mapping problem to an extraction of the quantifiers

Indeed we already have the independently motivated procedure of

(XVI) 3 S 6 3 s 3P5 3 p Tsp.

such a form were postulated, the distinction between different numbers

(XIX) 3Xl 3SI ~ ~ s Mxs t~ ~X 2 • 3S6,

(XX) 3X23S6 (x~x, s~s6VSMxs & ,,~s63S x~x2x Mxs).

use the strengthened output of uniformising loosely to obtain the in-

pretation of the sentence; or they have to rely on a principle of

(XXI) 3X2 V x 3S~ V s Mxs v 3S6 V s 3X2 V x Mxs v

(3X2 V x 3 S 6 74 s M x s & 3S6 V s::lX, 3 x Mxslj