Inverse-Linking Construction

Abstract

This paper treats the inverse scope reading of the Inverse-Linking Construction under a new perspective that distributivity is reduced to plurality based on Landman (2000). The immediate advantage is that my analysis can explain the inverse scope reading of the Inverse-Linking Construction that does not contain a universal quantifier, the data that previous approaches could not explain. Second, my analysis can account for why there is no inverse scope reading when the first NP in the Inverse-Linking Construction is definite, without missing the generalization that indefiniteness licenses distributivity. Third, my analysis is compositional throughout the process of producing the distributive reading, without reinterpreting the prepositional phrase that contains a quantifier phrase. In addition to putting forth the analysis, I further characterize the inverse scope reading as NP-internal, backward, and embedded distributivity.