Talk by Javier Gutierrez Rexach
Semantic Properties of Interrogative Generalized Quantifiers
This talk is a contribution to the analysis of interrogative quantifiers within
the Generalized Quantifier framework. Interrogative quantifiers are logical quantifiers, since
they satisfy the properties of COnservativity, Extension and Permutation invariance, and always
denote generalized existential functions, but they fail to preserve Topic Neutrality. A uniform
semantic account of the recoverability of answer sets from different linguistic responses
(constituent and sentential answers) is derived from a new notion of question resolution. Finally,
two different kinds of quantifier prefixes are studied: $k$-sequences of interrogative quantifiers
(multiple questions) and combinations of interrogative and declarative quantifiers (quantification
into questions). A general reducibility theorem for multiple questions is stated and, in the
second case, the map of different readings (``individual'', ``pair-list'' and ``cumulative'') is
charted according to their respective formal properties.
Paul Dekker, November 2, 1995