Ambiguity resolution and information structure

The Linguistic Review 2014; 31(4): 667 – 691

M. Teresa Espinal* and Xavier VillalbaAmbiguity resolution and information structure

Abstract: In this paper we focus on the topic of ambiguity resolution in and be-yond grammar. We deal with two questions: where is ambiguity resolved (in par-ticular, the ambiguity of expressions conveying specific forms of information packaging and common ground management), and what is the design of gram-mar that emerges from the study of ambiguity problems. After a review of the standard analysis of ambiguity within the Principles and Parameters model, in which ambiguous syntactic objects require different structures at syntax, we will focus on various phenomena that will support a model of grammar in which syn-tactic structures are mapped into information structures, which will feed both logical form and PF interfaces. In particular, we will show that scope relations between numeral quantifiers in Catalan and the interpretation of preverbal bare nominals in Brazilian Portuguese are sensitive to information structures that need to be translated into representations of meaning which are different from classical LFs in generative grammar. Only PFs are ambiguous.

Keywords: ambiguity, syntax, information structure, logical form, PF

DOI 10.1515/tlr-2014-0015

1 Introduction

1.1 Ambiguity in the Principles and Parameters framework

The heart of the treatment of sentence semantic ambiguity in the Chomskian tra-dition has been very simple, yet powerful: different interpretations must be paired with different syntactic structures. A paramount example of this strategy is the treatment of quantifier scope in modern linguistic theory. Montague (1974) point-ed the way for many years to come with his rule of quantifying-in. In his system,

*Corresponding author: M. Teresa Espinal: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. E-mail: [email protected] Villalba: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. E-mail: [email protected]

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668 M. Teresa Espinal and Xavier Villalba

scope is obtained by adjoining the quantifier to an open sentence which is turned into a property by lambda abstraction. This operation was postulated to solve a type-mismatch yielded by generalized quantifiers in specific syntactic positions (object vs. subject) and to assign a transparent composition to quantifier scope.

This idea was implemented in mainstream generative grammar by Robert May (May 1977, 1985), who devised a rule of quantifier raising (QR) operating at a syntactic post-S-Structure component, called Logical Form (LF).1 This rule was considered a subtype of the more general Move α, the only transformational rule in the Principles and Parameters (P&P) framework. The application of the QR rule to scope ambiguities guaranteed that each interpretation would be paired with one distinct representation at LF.

The immediate effect of May’s proposal was an increase in the number of works devoted to showing that the scope of quantifiers was restricted by standard configurations blocking movement, namely islands. If scope was determined by QR at LF, and both QR and LF were syntactic in nature, the prediction was made that the scope possibilities of quantifiers should be affected by principles of grammar, and therefore that ambiguity scope resolution is part of the task of grammar.

A second effect was the interest in studying whether QR could be parameter-ized, just as, say, wh-movement was (see particularly Huang 1982, 1983; Aoun and Li 1995). But the most important cross-linguistic finding was the existence of a class of languages not applying QR, but rather involving a transparent scope reading off S-structure. This was the case of Hungarian, which was labelled a rigid scope language (see Kiss 1991, 2005; Szabolcsi 1997). The examples in (1), reported by Kiss (2005), are scopally unambiguous and transparent.

(1) a. Jánost mindenkét lány tőbbszőr is meghívta. John.acc both girls several.times invited ‘It is stated about John that each of the two girls invited him on several

occasions.’ b. Jánost tőbbszőr is mindkét lány meghívta. John.acc several.times both girls invited ‘It is stated about John that on several occasions both girls invited him.’

Moreover, if May’s QR was to be taken seriously as an instantiation of Move α, one could expect it to run into trouble when economy considerations were

1 The term Logical Form (LF) was an unfortunate coinage, for it led to much confusion with the concept of logical form as used in the logico-semantic tradition; see Jacobson (2002) for extensive discussion on this issue.


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introduced into generative grammar: since Move α was triggered by feature checking and constrained by economy principles, QR did not fit in with the pic-ture. Two solutions were proposed in the 1990s: either (i) multiple dedicated functional syntactic projections should be assumed (Beghelli 1995; Szabolcsi 1997), or (ii) QR should be dispensed with altogether and scope facts should be derived instead by means of a different mechanism, such as choice functions (Re-inhart 1997), or by independent syntactic operations (Hornstein 1995). Yet, re-gardless of their technical differences, the preceding proposals display a common feature: they fit into the canonical Principles and Parameters (P&P) model, where syntax splits into the two interpretative interfaces PF (Phonetic Form) and LF, and ambiguity is resolved either at S-Structure or at LF at the latest.2 LF is standardly posited as an output level of representation of syntax, where a structural account of certain semantic ambiguities is given. LF, thus understood, is a level of repre-sentation for ambiguity resolution. By definition, LFs cannot be ambiguous.

1.2 Problems with the standard view

Syntactic resolution of ambiguity runs into trouble when we take into account information structure, non-technically understood as the different ways in which the information of an utterance can be packaged to suit the communicative needs of the participants engaged in a speech interchange (see Chafe 1976, Vallduví 1992, Krifka 2007). Two prominent aspects to consider in this regard are the pro-jection of focus and the domain of adverbs of quantification, which are both af-fected by information structure (henceforth, IS).3

One well-known category in IS is focus, which, according to Krifka (2007: ex. 6) “indicates the presence of alternatives that are relevant for the interpreta-tion of linguistic expressions”.4 Consider one simple case, with the semantic

2 Within the generative tradition the concept of LF refers to a syntactic representation of mean-ing. It is designed to capture those aspects of the meaning of a sentence that are strictly deter-mined by the principles of grammar (e.g., movement of quantifiers to account for scope, recon-struction to in situ positions to account for appropriate binding relations, predicate-argument relations to account for thematic requirements, etc.). LF, conceived as a syntactic representation of meaning, parallels PF, which is to be understood as the syntactic representation of sound. LF and PF are said to be mediated by syntax.3 The label information structure comes from Halliday (1967) and information packaging from Chafe (1976).4 See Matić and Wedgwood (2013) for a global discussion of the notion of focus and a critique of the assumption that focus is a “cohesive phenomenon about which to theorize”.

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representation it would receive in Krifka’s Structured Meaning Approach (Jacobs 1983; Krifka 1991, 1992, 1993; von Stechow 1991):5

(2) a. What did John tell you? b. John told me [focus a lie] c. <λx[told(me,x,John)],<a lie>>

Here, the focus of the sentence in (2b) is the constituent that correlates with the wh-word in (2a). It is the constituent that triggers alternatives, as proposed in the pioneering study by Mats Rooth on Alternative Semantics (Rooth 1985, 1992). The logical representation in (2c) must be seen as a classic example of Krifka’s (2007) partition of the meaning of a sentence into a background (B) part (λx[told(me,x,John)]) and a focus (F) part (<a lie>).6 We will label these represen-tations <B,F> structures.

What is interesting for our purposes is the fact that syntactic structure under-determines the extension of information focus, in the sense that the focus compo-nent can be ambiguously associated either with the object of the verb (2b), with the whole VP (3b) or even with the whole sentence (4b). This fact was originally described by Selkirk (1984) as focus projection:

(3) a. What did John do? b. John [focus told me a lie] c. <λP[P(John)],<told me a lie>>

(4) a. What happened? b. [focus John told me a lie] c. <told(me,a lie,John)>

What is crucial is that (2b), (3b) and (4b) share the same syntactic structure, but project focus differently to meet the requirements of the discourse context. Since IS is intended to represent the structure of the information in which an utterance

5 As is common practice, we identify the focus of a sentence as the element in the answer which provides the content to the wh-word in the question. Moreover, following Kiss (1998: 248), we take this constituent to correspond to information focus (or presentational focus), which conveys new information carried by a sentence. Jackendoff (1972) defines information focus as the infor-mation that is not shared by speaker and addressee.6 The logical concept of logical form refers to the representation of meaning obtained from the surface form of a sentence, by abstracting from the predicate-argument relations expressed, and a specific packaging of information that responds to the immediate needs of interlocutors in a communicative interaction.


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is packaged, in order to suit the communicative needs of the participants engaged in a speech act interchange (e.g., by means of different <B,F> structures), the rep-resentation of the meaning of these information structures is no longer a syntac-tic level of representation (i.e., LF), but rather a logical form of a proposition in a given context. As noted, logical forms cannot be ambiguous, by definition. There-fore, different ISs should give birth to different logical forms.

Consequently, what (2b), (3b) and (4b) illustrate is that the phenomenon of focus projection provides different ISs for a non-ambiguous syntactic structure. And the problem being raised is that, within the standard P&P model, the various interpretations associated with John told me a lie cannot be accounted for unless a new level of representation is introduced after syntax. We will consider this solution after we present a second challenge for the standard view of grammar.

Let us consider the semantic interpretation of adverbs of quantification. As Barbara Partee has shown in several works (Partee 1991, 1999; Hajičová, Partee and Sgall 1998), the domain of quantification of these adverbs is crucially affected by focus: the focus of a sentence projects into the nuclear scope, whereas non- focus material (i.e., the background) projects into the restriction (see Diesing 1992, von Fintel 1994, and Herburger 2000 for similar ideas, with different techni-cal implementations).7 A simple example will suffice to make Partee’s observa-tion clear (small caps indicate the constituent that bears information focus stress).

(5) [Situation: Mary takes John to the cinema 4 times, to the library 2 times, and to the pool 1 time. Moreover, she also takes Sarah to the cinema 6 times.]

a. Usually, Mary takes John to the cinema. b. Usually, Mary takes John to the cinema.

With respect to the described situation, (5a) is true (the most usual place where Mary takes John is the cinema), but (5b) is false (the most usual person that Mary takes to the cinema is Sarah, not John). The <B,F> semantic representations cor-responding to these examples are provided in (6a) and (6b), respectively.

(6) a. Gen(e) <λx[takes(e,John,x,Mary)],<to the cinema>> b. Gen(e) <λy[takes(e,y,to the cinema,Mary)],<John>>

7 See, however, von Fintel (2004) for a more parsimonious account of the so-called semantic partition based on the idea that the domain of the adverbial quantifier is an anaphor whose ref-erence is contextually (i.e., pragmatically) supplied.

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These examples show that information focus in English may constrain the se-mantic interpretation of sentences, namely the identification of the nuclear scope of quantifiers (i.e., it is to the cinema in (6a), and it is John in (6b)). It thus affects the Common Ground (CG) content, in Krifka’s (2007) terms (that is, the truth- conditional information), whereas other instances of focus affect the CG manage-ment (i.e., information packaging) in accordance with the conversational moves of the participants, which does not have anything to do with the truth- conditional information of the CG, as we will see in Section 3.1.

Furthermore, information focus has an effect on PF, where it must be associ-ated with nuclear stress. The interaction of adverbs of quantification and focus raises once again the need to introduce a new level of representation that can account for these effects, and that feeds both PF and logical form.

This is crucially the solution adopted by some scholars, who postulate an independent IS component after S-Structure, with different labels: Information Structure (Vallduví 1992), Σ-Structure (Zubizarreta 1998) and Focus Structure (Erteschik-Shir 1997, 2007).8

In the next section we present our proposal for this issue in detail.

2 Theoretical proposalTaking into consideration these approaches to ambiguity/scope resolution in the theory of grammar, in this section we present the framework on which we will base our analysis of the set of data we will discuss in Section 3. This analysis rests on specific assumptions about IS and the architecture of grammar.

Following Halliday (1967), Chafe (1976) and posterior work in the linguistic literature, we assume IS as a basic notion that refers to the packaging of informa-tion conveyed by an utterance. Moreover, following Krifka (2007), we assume that those aspects of IS that have truth-conditional impact are to be associated with CG content, while those that relate to the pragmatic use of expressions are to be associated with CG management.

We hereby assume the representation of IS postulated by Neeleman and van de Koot (2008) in (7a), and its correspondence to Vallduvi’s (1992, 1993) informa-tion packaging into link-focus-tail structure in (7b), as well as to Erteschik-Shir’s

8 An alternative solution is given by the scholars aligned with the Cartographic Project (see Rizzi 1997 and Cinque 2006, among others), who postulate that the information status of syntactic constituents is encoded by specific features (e.g., [focus], [topic]) and their corresponding func-tional projections (e.g., FocusP, TopicP). See López (2009) for a critique on minimalist grounds.


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(1997, 2007) canonical topic-focus structure in (7c).9 The IS in (7a) shows that topic-comment structures cannot be embedded in a background, but focus- background structures can be part of a comment. Either a left-dislocated constit-uent or the subject can be the topic, and either the focus is contained in the VP or the whole VP is identified with the focus.

(7) a. [topic * [COMMENT FOCUS [BACKGROUND . . .]] b. link focus tail c. SUBJECTtop [. . . X . . .]foc

We will explore the idea that, even in the situation where syntactic structures are not ambiguous (e.g., the syntactic structure associated with John told me a lie), syntactically well-formed linguistic objects may be associated with various interpretations in their mapping to external systems (e.g., the structures in (2c), (3c) and (4c)). In order to achieve this goal, we will assume a necessary mapping between syntactic representations and representations of IS, which provide the input to logical forms and PFs.10 That is, we postulate that IS interfaces with syn-tax on the one hand, and with both logical forms and PFs (e.g., prosodic intona-tion patterns) on the other. Our main hypothesis is that IS, conceived as in (7a) (or any of its variants in (7b) and (7c)), is the basic level feeding the interpretive and realization interfaces.

Hence, we depart from those studies that derive focus from the existence of stress (Neeleman and Reinhart 1998, Szendrői 2001, Reinhart 2006). We will show that focus constituents very often do not have a special stress assignment.11

9 The symbol * used after topic in (7a) indicates that there may be multiple topics.A variant of (7c) for sentences with stage-topics is given in (i) (Erteschik-Shir 1997). The

notion of stage-topic is used to refer to the spatio-temporal parameters (here and now) of a given sentence in some specific discourse.

(i) sTOPt [. . . X . . .]foc 10 A couple of examples of such mapping rules are given in (i), from Neeleman and van de Koot (2008: 144), which maps the syntactic structure in (ii) with the IS in (7a) in the text.

(i) a. Comment Mapping Rule If XP in (ii) is interpreted as topic, then interpret N2 as comment. b. Background Mapping Rule If XP in (ii) is interpreted as focus, then interpret N2 as background.

(ii) [N1 XP N2] 11 See also Krifka (2007) for discussion of the claim that there are many cases in which a constit-uent that refers to something mentioned previously is in focus.

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In this paper we also depart from the so-called cartographic approach to discourse-related word-order variation (see fn. 8), since the scope ambiguities we present in Section 3 cannot be solved by different adjunctions to the specifier position of particular functional projections at the left periphery of sentential structures. If IS were part of syntax (i.e., an aspect of syntactic representation, as in Büring 2007 and in the cartographic approach by Rizzi 1997 and others), we would expect to be able to find a straightforward relationship between syntactic constituents and (topic–focus) IS-representations. Unfortunately, languages show many difficulties when it comes to identifying syntactically topics and fo-cus, as various comparative studies have shown independently (Zubizarreta 1998, Mayol 2007, Büring 2009, Villalba 2011).

We align ourselves with those authors that consider IS to be a level of repre-sentation in its own right (Vallduví 1992 and Erteschik-Shir 1997, 2007, among others), and we assume correspondences between bits of syntactic structures and pieces of IS, followed by operations that guarantee the IS-interpretation into an appropriate logical form and the IS-realization into a well-formed PF. Accordingly, the schema that we have in mind is as follows:

(8) Syntax >> IS >> logical form/PF

Thus, in what follows we will argue against the ‘LF first’ hypothesis (Bobaljik and Wurmbrand 2012) and the ‘PF first’ hypothesis (Reinhart 2006, Erteschik-Shir 2007), represented as in (9a) and (9b), respectively, on the basis of two case studies. In (9) the symbol ⊂ stands for an inclusion relation: IS is included/ represented at LF or at PF.

(9) a. Syntax >> IS ⊂ LF >> PF b. Syntax >> IS ⊂ PF >> LF

In contrast to the positions schematized in (9), first we will show that scope relations between quantifiers are sensitive to IS. Against Bobaljik and Wurm-brand (2012) and the Scope Transparency Principle,12 we will show the existence of interpretations that support the idea that the identification of IS is previous to scope resolution at a semantic level of representation different from syntactic LF, otherwise we could not account for scope relationships of the following sort: focus >> topic. See Section 3.1.

12 The Scope Transparency Principle (Bobaljik & Wurmbrand 2012: 373, (1)) is an alignment constraint stating that “If the order of two elements at LF is A >> B, the order at PF is A >> B”.


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Second, we will show that the interpretation of preverbal BNs in Brazilian Portuguese is also sensitive to IS. They are interpreted as logical subjects of predications in categorical judgments (see the structure in (7c)), thus having a strong construal and constraining a generic definite plural reading (Cyrino and Espinal to appear; Espinal and Cyrino 2013). The identification of such preverbal BNs as informational topics containing a denotation focus must take place before semantic reconstruction and the operation of existential closure applies to run-of-the-mill topics in existential sentences. See Section 3.2.

We predict that PF representations may be ambiguous, in the sense that they happen to be the legitimate realization for more than one syntactic structure (as in classical examples of syntactic ambiguities), IS (as in (2b), (3b), (4n)) or logical form (as we will see in Section 3.1 below).

3 Empirical studies

3.1 Quantification and information structure: IS >> logical form

In this section we will discuss evidence for the central role of IS, as the compo-nent relating syntax and the phonetic and semantic interfaces, and we will see how scope relations between quantifiers get disambiguated in a language like Catalan. To set the stage, consider a typical example of scope ambiguity in En-glish (quantifiers are in italics for the sake of clarity):

(10) Someone read every book.

Here, as discussed at length by May (1985), two readings are available: the strict reading, in which there is one person who read all the books (the existential quantifier someone scopes over the universal quantifier every), and the inverse reading, in which for each book there is a different person who read it (the univer-sal quantifier every scopes over the existential quantifier someone). In May’s sys-tem, and from him onwards, the resolution of this ambiguity was syntactic in spirit: each reading was associated via QR with a different syntactic structure at LF, the part of the syntactic component without any impact on PF (hence the later term covert syntax, surely much more appropriate than LF, as noted in fn. 1).

Interestingly, as originally pointed out by Hornstein (1999: 60), Romance lan-guages do not usually show the kind of scope ambiguity typically found in En-glish: unlike the English translation, an example like (11) shows a strict scope pattern ($ > ∀), but lacks the inverse scope reading (∀ > $).

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(11) Alguien saludó a todo el mundo. someone greeted.3sg to all.masc the world ‘Someone greeted everyone.’ a. There was some particular person who greeted everybody b. *For every/each person there was a different person who greeted him

In example (12), by contrast, the scope relation between the two quantifiers in complement position is ambiguous, allowing both transparent and inverse scope readings.

(12) Juan regaló un libro a todo el mundo. Juan gave.3sg a book to all.masc the world ‘Juan gave a book to everyone.’ a. There was a particular book that Juan gave to everybody b. For every/each person, there was a different book that Juan gave to him

Hornstein suggests that this fact might derive from the special nature of preverbal subjects in pro-drop languages, namely its typical association with a topic inter-pretation and the impossibility of being focused. In other words, he suggests that the information status of quantifiers affects their scope possibilities. Whereas in (11) the quantifier alguien ‘someone’ in subject position is interpreted as topic, and as such must scope over the quantifier a todo el mundo ‘to everybody’ within the focus (see Erteschik-Shir 2007 for a similar claim), in (12) both the indefinite un libro ‘a book’ and the quantifier a todo el mundo ‘to everybody’ are part of the focus, and in this structural position they both may have wide scope.

Even though appealing, Hornstein’s claim is not completely accurate, for it does not consider the influence that the choice of quantifiers (in the case at hand, one being existential and the other universal) may have in the different scope readings (see Beghelli and Stowell 1997, and Szabolcsi 1997 for more on this dis-turbing factor). To avoid any scoping preference derived from the idiosyncratic properties of the quantifiers involved, we will consider the behaviour of Catalan numeral quantifiers only, in two informationally controlled environments.13

First, we begin with a structural pattern similar to the Spanish example in (12), namely the combination of two numeral quantifiers in focus position in Cat-alan, as illustrated in (13). In order to help identify the two readings, we include a

13 The data in this section show that Catalan is not a rigid scope language, namely that scope relations cannot be read off syntactic structures, against the claims made in Villalba (1999).


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first continuation reflecting the strict scope reading and a second one reflecting the inverse scope reading.14

(13) A. Com vas avaluar el teu curs de màster? how past evaluate the your course of master ‘How did you evaluate your master’s course?’ B. [focus Vaig assignar dues tasques a tres past.1sg assign two.fem.pl tasks to three estudiants] . . . students ‘I assigned two tasks to three students . . .’ a. i en van lliurar una dijous i and of.them past.3pl deliver one Thursday and l’altra divendres. [→ 2>3 (strict)] the.fem-other.fem Friday ‘. . . and they delivered one on Thursday and the other on Friday . . .’ b. però cadascú només en va lliurar but each only of.them past.3pl deliver una. [→ 3>2 (inverse)] one ‘. . . but each delivered only one.’

Since both continuations are felicitous, we can safely conclude that when both quantifiers are in focus, the sentence is scopally ambiguous, in accordance with Hornstein’s observation. Moreover, what these data crucially show is that, as far as focus is concerned, IS underdetermines scope relations, since it is surface- ambiguous. Consider the <B,F> structure associated with (13B), which we repre-sent in (14).

(14) <λP[P( pro)],<assigned two tasks to three students>>

Note that (14) is still scopally ambiguous, which means it is a semantic represen-tation of the <B,F> structure, but not a full-fledged logical form. At this point se-mantic operations must apply to map this input onto two scopally unambiguous logical forms.

14 Catalan is a typical null-subject language, so that the subject is omitted unless a contrastive reading is intended. In our examples, this null subject is a first person null pronoun, which we represent as pro in our <B,F> structures.

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Even though, the exact operation deriving scope is immaterial to our discus-sion, we illustrate the two scope readings with the semantic representation pro-posed for numerals by Krifka (1995), leaving aside intensional details (see Dalry-mple and Mofu 2012 for a development). We assume the denotation in (15a) for any numeral n, where OU is an individualizer operator turning the property de-noted by any count noun into object units (hence the spelling OU). (15b) provides the meaning of the cardinal to and (15c) the meaning of the nominal phrase two tasks.

(15) a. λnλPλx.[P(x) ∧ OU(x) = n] b. [[two]] = λPλx.[P(x) ∧ OU(x) = 2] c. [[two tasks]] = λx.[task(x) ∧ OU(x) = 2]

We can now represent the scope relations between the two numerals two and three in focus in (14) as provided in the logical forms in (16), where the relative position of the two lambda operators determines the relative scope of the numer-al quantifiers: the strict reading in (16a) and the inverse reading in (16b).15

(16) a. <λx.[task(x) ∧ OU(x) = 2] λy.[student(y) ∧ OU(y) = 3], <assigned(x,y,pro)>> b. <λy.[student(y) ∧ OU(y) = 3] λx.[task(x) ∧ OU(x) = 2], <assigned(x,y,pro)>>

Taken together with the evidence from quantification restriction (see Section 1.2), this analysis raises important concerns regarding the architecture of gram-mar. Since IS does not have any straightforward means for representing the rela-tive scope of numeral quantifiers located within the focus component (see (14)), we are faced with two theoretical possibilities: either (i) two representations are provided in syntax – either at S-Structure or at LF – which happen to map into one IS, and then into two logical forms (if we are still assuming that logical form is a level at which scope relations particularly matter), or (ii) we consider that syntax and IS deal with just one representation, which is mapped onto two logical forms that represent different scope representations. As Jacobson (2002) argues from similar scope ambiguity facts, we should discard the former possibil-ity as redundant, uneconomical and inelegant.

15 This technical solution follows the original solution implemented in Montague (1974) by means of his quantifying-in rule. However, several alternatives exist involving different mecha-nisms to the very same end, like Cooper-storage (Cooper 1983) or type-shifting (Jacobson 2002). Nonetheless, the choice does not affect our main argument that scope ambiguities must be solved in the cases at hand after syntax and IS.


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The second option, which points towards a IS >> logical form direction, seems more desirable on every ground, for – even though it may strike the orthodox generativist as inadequate – it renders LF totally dispensable as far as quantifier scope is concerned (indeed, it constitutes its main raison d’être).16

Let us now consider the case of a Catalan sentence where the first quantifier is a clitic left-dislocated topic connected to a previous DP by a topic chain (Givón 1983) or a bridging relation (Clark 1977), and the second quantifier occupies the rightmost position within a sentence, where it is interpreted as information focus and receives sentence stress. As the continuations in (17B) show, we obtain both the strict scope reading (3>2) and the inverse scope one (2>3), namely the one in which, unpredictably, the quantifier in focus scopes over the one functioning as a topic:

(17) A. Com els vas avaluar, els alumnes? how them past evaluate the students ‘How did you evaluate your students?’ B. [topic A tres estudiants] [focus els vaig assignar to three students them past.1sg assign dues tasques] . . . two tasks ‘I assigned two tasks to three students . . .’ a. però cadascú només en va lliurar but each only of.them past.3pl deliver una. [→ 3>2 (strict)] one ‘. . . but each delivered only one . . .’ b. i en van lliurar una dijous i and of.them past.3pl deliver one Thursday and l’altra divendres. [→ 2>3 (inverse)] the.fem-other.fem Friday ‘. . . and they delivered one on Thursday and the other on Friday.’

We can represent the strict and the inverse scope readings as in (18a) and (18b), respectively:

16 See Jacobson (2002) and Steedman (2012) for analyses that defend a surface-based interpre-tation approach. See also Jackendoff (1997, 2002), who defends an alternative model of grammar that dispenses with LF altogether.

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(18) a. <λy.[student(y) ∧ OU(y) = 3] λx.[task(x) ∧ OU(x) = 2] λP[P(y,pro)], <assigned(x)>>

b. <λx.[task(x) ∧ OU(x) = 2] λy.[student(y) ∧ OU(y) = 3] λP[P(y,pro)], <assigned(x)>>

The strict scope reading is unsurprising, and expected from different analyses (Hornstein 1999; Bobaljik and Wurmbrand 2012; Erteschik-Shir 1997, 2007) that argue that topics must have wide scope over any quantifier. Yet, the availability of the inverse scope reading, which clearly suggests that topics in Catalan need not get widest scope, is unexpected for these authors. Moreover, and more im-portant for our purposes, the examples confirm our previous generalization that a unique syntactic and <B,F> information structure may still be surface- ambiguous, requiring its mapping into two different logical forms that resolve scope ambiguity. We again interpret this as an indication of a IS >> logical form relation.

The evidence described so far points towards the conclusion that we have different levels of ambiguity resolution of sentences affected by quantifier scope, so that ambiguity resolution cannot be considered a unified process. We have shown that sentences involving focus projection or the interaction between ad-verbs of quantification and focus (see ex. (5) in Section 1.2) involve one syn-tactic representation but two or more distinct <B,F> structures, which in turn yield different logical forms. Besides, in the present section we have provided some arguments that support an inverse scope reading for sentences that have quantifiers both in the topic and in the focus. The implications of this section are that scope ambiguity cannot be completely resolved at IS, and that in order to be disambiguated it must await a full semantic logical form fed by <B,F> structures.

3.2 Preverbal bare nominals in Brazilian Portuguese and information structure: IS >> logical form and IS >> PF

Let us now move to the analysis of preverbal bare nominals (BNs; that is, nominal expressions apparently unspecified for Number and Definiteness) in Brazilian Portuguese (BrP). In this section we will address the question of what is the inter-pretation of preverbal BNs in BrP from a theory of information structure that fol-lows the Structured Meaning Approach. More specifically, regarding the set of BNs that occur in preverbal position of stage-level predicates (Carlson 1980, Kratzer 1995), the question we address is whether these preverbal BNs are, from an informational perspective (i.e., CG management, Krifka 2007), focus or topic,


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and whether they have an existential or a generic interpretation.17 Consider (19) and (20B).

(19) %Político ganhou benefício do governo. politician obtained benefit of.the government ‘Politicians obtained benefits from the government.’

(20) A. Ontem teve protesto de empregada doméstica no Rio. yesterday had protest of employee domestic in Rio ‘Yesterday, there was a protest by maids in Rio.’ B. Não, professor eles protestaram ontem no Rio. not teacher they protested yesterday in Rio ‘No, teachers protested yesterday in Rio.’

For the time being what the reader should bear in mind is that (i) the symbol % is used to indicate that these type of examples are felicitous only when associ-ated with a contrastive interpretation for the BN or in a pair-list reading (Müller 2002, 2004; Pires de Oliveira and Rothstein 2011), and (ii) the sentences in (19) and (20B) do not have a natural episodic interpretation (Pires de Oliveira and Rothstein 2011), in spite of the fact that a stage-level predicate in a past simple tense should favour such a reading.

Before we answer the two questions presented above, and following previ-ous work by Sonia Cyrino and M. Teresa Espinal (Cyrino and Espinal to ap-pear; Espinal and Cyrino 2013), it should be pointed out that these sentences have strong structural similaritites with sentences where preverbal BNs precede individual -level and kind-level predicates, and with sentences where preverbal BNs combine with stage-level predicates in generic/habitual contexts.18 There is also a strong similarity with sentences that express categorical judgments (Kuroda 1972), built in BrP by means of a left-dislocated full DP (with an overt D in topic position) followed by an overt third person resumptive pronoun (Britto 1998,

17 We would like to thank Livia Cucatto for providing us with the set of BrP examples contained in this section, and Sonia Cyrino for extensive discussion of their analysis and interpretation.18 The following examples are from Cyrino and Espinal (to appear: exs. (46b) and (51b)).

(i) a. Não há um problema de extinção. Panda é comum na China. not has a problem of extinction panda is common in.the China ‘There is not a problem of extinction. Pandas are common in China.’ b. Professor trabalhava muito antigamente. teacher work.past.imp.3sg a lot in the past ‘Teachers worked a lot in the past.’

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2000).19 In all these cases we may claim that a topic (i.e., a psychological subject, Gabelentz 1869; a logical subject, Brentano 1862, 1867, Marty 1918) is followed by a comment (i.e., a predication, that is, the act of affirming or denying what is ex-pressed by the predicate about the subject; Kuroda 1972).

In the BrP examples presented so far, both in the text and in the footnotes, the preverbal nominal expression is to be mapped with a topic, and the subse-quent constituents with a comment (see the IS in (7a) above). This particular or-ganization into topic and comment reveals a specific packaging phenomenon, according to which the constituent that counts as a topic (i) narrows or changes the current discourse topic, (ii) is selected from the set of referents previously in-troduced in the discourse, and (iii) is necessarily specific, since it identifies the element(s) in the common ground that the sentence is about (Erteschik-Shir 1997; Cohen and Erteschik-Shir 2002). For our purposes it is sufficient to say that the notion of topic is a cover term for these interpretive effects.

The preverbal BrP BNs in (19) and (20B) have been argued (Cyrino and Espi-nal to appear) to be strong DPs: full DPs with null Ds specified for plural morpho-syntactic number.20 Moreover, these authors postulate for these preverbal BNs the structure attributed to the logical subjects/topics of categorical judgments, with either a covert (e.g., (19)) or an overt (e.g., (20B)) third person resumptive pronoun in syntactic subject position.

19 Note that that according to Kuroda (1972) a categorical judgment is assumed to consist of two separate acts: the act of recognition of that which is to be made the subject (i.e., the topic), and the act of affirming or denying what is expressed by the predicate about that subject (i.e., the focus).

Britto provides examples such as the following to illustrate the form of categorical judgments in BrP (Britto 2000: exs. (1) and (9b)):

(i) a. [Esses rapazes]i elesi são muito bonitos. these guys they are very handsome.pl ‘These guys are very handsome.’ c. [Um homem comum]i elei tem um conforto compatível com (. . .). a man common he has a comfort compatible with ‘A common man has comfort compatible with (. . .)’

Although prototypical categorical judgments combine a strong subject with a generic predicate (Kuroda 1972, Ladusaw 1994), other types of categorical judgments can be described in natural languages which, in spite of not being formed on the basis of a generic predicate, still conform to the traditional and philosophical structure of a subject and a predicate.20 See Cyrino and Espinal (to appear) for syntactic arguments in support of the hypothesis that preverbal BNs are full DPs, with a null D specified for plural morphosyntactic number.


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(21) a. [TOP [DP[+PL] Ø [NumP Num[+PL] [N político]]] [IP pro ganhou beneficio do gover-no]]

b. [TOP [DP[+PL] Ø [NumP Num[+PL] [N professor]]] [IP eles protestaram ontem no Rio]]

In accordance with the syntactic analysis in (21), preverbal BNs have a strong reading (i.e., they can be interpreted neither as weak definites nor as weak indef-inites), they can only be interpreted as referring to the maximal plurality of indi-viduals that satisfy the property denoted by the noun and, therefore, they can only be interpreted as associated with a presupposition of existence, as is the case with definite overt DPs.21

Furthermore, the preverbal BNs in (19) and (20B) are interpreted in a contras-tive context, in such a way that the contrasted set must be contextually available and specific (since contrasts involve the partitioning of a set available in dis-course). In Krifka’s (2007) terms they correspond to contrastive topics. From a pro-sodic point of view, contrastive topics are topics with a rising accent (recall the symbol % we used in (19)); syntactically, they are topics containing a focus; and, semantically, preverbal BNs refer to an aboutness topic containing a denotation focus, which is the constituent indicating that there are alternatives at the level of denotation: the alternatives have to be comparable to the denotation of the expression in focus (of the same type or the same ontological sort). What this means is that, in order to be able to assign meaning to the syntactic structures in (21), it is necessary to map these structures into ISs that have two foci: the one contained within the informational topic and the one that is contained within the

21 They should be contrasted with preverbal BNs in so-called thetic judgments. According to Kuroda (1972), a thetic judgment represents simply the recognition or rejection of material of a judgment; it does not contain a logical subject, and it merely introduces the description of an eventuality of a certain type (i.e., a thetic judgment is viewed as having an implicit stage topic). As pointed out by Cyrino and Espinal (to appear: note 34), in contrast to preverbal BNs in cate-gorical judgments of the sort illustrated in (19) and (20B), preverbal BNs of thetic judgments oc-cur in subject position: a resumptive pronoun is not possible, and they have an existential inter-pretation, not a generic one, guaranteed by an operation of semantic reconstruction within the VP. Interestingly, these authors point out that in the examples in (i) the preverbal BNs are not contrastive and that primary stress is either on V (ia) or on a constituent within the VP (ib). The symbol ' is used to mark the syllable with primary stress.

(i) a. Turista(s), 'tem em Barcelona. turist(.pl) have in Barcelona ‘As for tourists, there are many/some in Barcelona.’ b. Bispo(s), tinha 'vários no congresso. bishop(.pl) had several in.the conference ‘As for bishops, there were several at the conference.’

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comment (Krifka 2007). These ISs are represented as in (22), and their logical forms in (23).

(22) a. [topic [focus poLÍtico]] [comment [focus gaNHOU] beneficio do governo] b. [topic não [focus profesSOR]] [comment eles [focus protesTAram] ontem no Rio]

(23) a. <ιX[politician(X) ∧ λP[P(X)]], <obtained benefits from the government>> b. <¬ιX[professor(X) ∧ λP[P(X)]], <protested yesterday in Rio>>

In support of this analysis we have to point out that the examples in (19) and (20B) cannot be the answer to wh-questions unless a contrastive context is built into the wh-question, as in Quem protestou ontem no Rio, professor ou empregada doméstica? ‘Who protested yesterday in Rio, teachers or maids?’ In that context the BN professor in the answer (20B) would be possible, meaning that the maxi-mal sum of all the professors relevant in the discourse domain protested in Rio yesterday.

The syntactic structures in (21) and the ISs in (22) guarantee that the prever-bal BNs are interpreted as informational topics with a strong discourse reference and a denotation focus. An argument in support of this analysis is based on ex-amples that show the interaction of preverbal BNs with a universal quantifier. Consider (24):22

(24) a. %Jogador visitou todos os projetos sociais. player visited all.pl the.pl projects social.pl ‘Players visited all the social projects.’ b. %Estudante trabalhou em todas as avenidas. students worked in all.pl the.pl avenues ‘Students worked in all the avenues.’

In should be noticed that in each of these examples, in spite of (i) the surface appearance of the two nominal expressions (a BN and a nominal expression spec-ified with a strong quantifier; let us call them A and B, respectively), (ii) the super-ficial word order between these nominal expressions (A linearly preceding B), (iii) the status of the verb (stage-level predicate) and (iv) the type of context (episod-ic), the preverbal BNs cannot have an indefinite, existential reading, and cannot be interpreted under the scope of the universal quantifier todos/-as ‘all’. The only

22 For these sentences a variant with an overt resumptive third person plural pronoun in syntac-tic subject position is also possible: Jogador eles visitaram todos os projetos sociais, Estudante eles trabalharam em todas as avenidas.


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possible interpretation for the preverbal BNs is a definite plural, which is scope-less with respect to ∀. Thus, (24a) means (the maximal sum of all) the players, they visited all the social projects; and (24b) means (the maximal sum of all) the students, they worked in all the avenues.

On the other hand, the examples in (24) should now be contrasted with those in (25).

(25) a. Todas as escolas foram visitadas por jogador. all.fem.pl the.fem.pl schools were visited by player ‘All schools were visited by the player(s)/players/a player.’ b. Demitiram professor./ Demitiu-se professor. fired teacher fired.cl teacher ‘The/a teacher was fired.’ c. Professor foi demitido da universidade. professor was fired of.the university ‘The/a professor was fired from the university.’

The postverbal agentive BN in (25a) allows an existential interpretation, as does the postverbal BN of the pronominal passive in (25b). But what is more relevant to us is that the preverbal patient BN in (25c) also allows such an interpretation. These examples differ from the previous ones considered so far in the text in that they are passive sentences, and these type of sentences (like those whose main predicate is an unaccusative verb or an existential predicate, see fn. 21), informa-tionally speaking, are thetic judgments, which affirm the existence of an eventu-ality of a certain type, where no attention is given to an individual, whether spe-cific or generic (see above the IS in fn. 9). Under this interpretation the preverbal BN in (25c) is supposed to follow a process of reconstruction, which will license an existential interpretation for the weak subject preverbal BN. Semantic recon-struction of the preverbal BN to object position would guarantee the existential reading of the subject BN, which is to be interpreted as part of the information focus.

Before we conclude, let us consider whether the discussion in this section may provide an argument that is pertinent with respect to the design of grammar.

First, notice that if IS was considered to be part of LF (Bobaljik and Wurm-brand 2012), in the relevant sense, one would expect that the sentences in (19), (20B) and (24) would allow an existential reading for the preverbal BN. This is so because, LF being a syntactic level of meaning representation, the constituent in syntactic topic position should have a copy in internal argument position, where it is to be semantically reconstructed. However, crucially, such a reading is not available for these examples (see the contrast between these examples and the

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preverbal BNs in (25c) and fn. 21). Given this fact, one could raise the question of what is exactly the interaction between IS and the operation of $-closure (which is a logical operation), and our answer is that, since the preverbal topic BNs in (19), (20B) and (24) cannot be submitted to $-closure, the identification of IS top-ics cannot be part of LF and must precede a formal representation of meaning (i.e., IS >> logical form).

Second, recall that the preverbal BNs in (19), (20B) and (24) require contras-tiveness. Why is it the case that those preverbal BNs that appear in episodic con-texts require contrastiveness?23 Our answer to this question is that (i) in the ab-sence of a predicate that constrains a generic reading (i.e., an individual-level or a kind-level predicate), (ii) in the absence of an overt generic operator (e.g., a universal quantifier over events) and (iii) in the absence of an overt definite arti-cle, contrastiveness (which also has specific prosodic correlates such as accent placement and intonation contours) is the strategy that encodes that the prever-bal BN must have a strong reading (i.e., a strong construal, with a presupposition- al interpretation). This suggests that the identification of an IS with a contrastive focus correlates with a specific PF realization, thus motivating the existence of IS information feeding PF realization (i.e., IS >> PF).

To sum up, the interpretation of preverbal BNs relies on specific mapping rules that associate the syntactic structures that correspond to them with a partic-ular component of the IS, that is, the informational topic. Furthermore, this asso-ciation supports the claims that IS interpretation requires an IS >> logical form interface, and that IS realization supports an IS >> PF interface.

In conclusion, the case study of preverbal BNs in episodic contexts has pro-vided an additional argument for the claim that IS is not included in LF and, consequently, IS is not included in syntax either. Our discussion supports a de-sign of language at the interfaces in the following terms: IS >> logical form/PF, since the operation of mapping a syntactic constituent (i.e., the full DP with a null D specified for plural Number) with the contrastive topic must precede the logical

23 These sentences (with preverbal BNs in combination with stage-level predicates in episodic contexts) are only grammatical with a contrastive reading for the BN, while parallel ones that combine BNs in generic contexts (i.e., with a stage-level predicate under the scope of a generic operator that quantifies over events) are well-formed without contrastiveness.

(i) a. Professor protesta sempre. teacher protests always ‘Teachers always protest.’ b. Político ganhava benefício do governo. politician obtained benefit of.the government ‘Politicians used to obtain benefits from the government.’


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operation of $-closure, and it must also precede the PF prosodic operations of accent placement and intonation assignment.

4 Concluding remarksIn this article we have discussed the role of IS in the resolution of grammatical ambiguity and its impact on the architecture of the grammar system. Relying on evidence from quantification and scope relations, we have shown that ambiguity resolution cannot be considered a unified process: ambiguous PFs may be associ-ated with various structures in syntax, at IS or at logical form. On the grounds of data from focus projection and adverbs of quantification, as well as data with two numeral quantifiers, we have argued for a separate post-syntactic IS level of rep-resentation, distinct from LF (which we dispense with), feeding both the seman-tic (logical form) and the phonetic (PF) interfaces. This IS level of representation has received independent support from the discussion on preverbal BNs in Brazil-ian Portuguese that refer to an aboutness topic containing a denotation focus. We have shown that, in spite of combining with a stage-level predicate in an episodic context, these preverbal BNs are best interpreted as topics with a strong construal (like logical subjects of categorical judgments). Overall our argumentation points towards the conclusion that IS cannot be considered part of syntax (LF included), but must be conceived as a post-syntactic level of representation that feeds both the logical form and the PF interfaces.

Acknowledgments: We would like to thank Sonia Cyrino and the reviewers at TLR for their valuable comments. This research has been funded by grants awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (FFI2011-23356) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (2009SGR-1073). The first author also acknowledges an ICREA Acadèmia award.

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Ambiguity resolution and information structure

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