Cover not available
Part of
Approaches to Hungarian: Volume 15: Papers from the 2015 Leiden Conference
Edited by Harry van der Hulst and Anikó Lipták
[Approaches to Hungarian 15] 2017
► pp. 209–238

Chapter 8
Focus and quantifier scope

An experimental study of Hungarian

The scope interpretation of doubly quantified sentences is known to be influenced by a variety of contextual factors, among them, Information Structure. While the topic status of an NP has been recurrently argued to give rise to wide scope, the effect of focus status remains controversial: in the literature it has been linked both to narrow scope and to wide scope. This paper presents an empirical study designed to explore whether the focus status of a quantified NP affects its scope-taking options by biasing its interpretation either towards narrow scope or towards wide scope with regard to another, non-focal and non-topical quantified NP in its background. The experiment is based on a rating task using contextualized target sentences accompanied by visual stimuli. While the study detects a mild advantage of linear scope over inverse scope, as well as a markedness effect of the post-verbal placement of focus, the focus status of quantified NPs is not found to interact with their scope interpretation. From a broader perspective, the finding that focus sharply differs from topic in terms of (the lack of) its effect on scope corroborates approaches that view topic and focus as belonging to two distinct dimensions of Information Structure.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background and research questions
    • 2.1Quantifier scope in Hungarian
    • 2.2Research questions
  • 3.The experiment
    • 3.1Method and material
    • 3.2Results
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/atoh.15.08sur
References
Anderson, Catherine
2004 The Structure and Real-time Comprehension of Quantifier Scope Ambiguity. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University dissertation.Google Scholar
Beghelli, Filippo & Tim Stowell
1997 Distributivity and Negation: the Syntax of Each and Every. In Anna Szabolcsi (ed.), Ways of Scope Taking, 71–107. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bott, Oliver & Janina Radó
2007 Quantifying Quantifier Scope: a Cross-methodological Comparison. In Sam Featherson & Wolfgang Sternefeld (eds.), Roots – Linguistics in Search of Its Evidential Base, 53–74. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Brody, Michael & Anna Szabolcsi
2003 Overt scope in Hungarian. Syntax 6. 19–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carifio, James & Rocco J. Perla
2007 Ten Common Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, Persistent Myths and Urban Legends about Likert Scales and Likert Response Formats and their Antidotes. Journal of Social Sciences 3 (3). 106–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jacob
1988 Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd edition). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Cohen, Ariel & Nomi Erteschik-Shir
2002 Topic, Focus and the Interpretation of Bare Plurals. Natural Language Semantics 10. 125–165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cresti, Diana
1995 Indefinite Topics. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Deguchi, Masanori & Yoshihisma Kitagawa
2002 Prosody and Wh-questions. In Masako Hirotani (ed.), Proceedings of the Thirty-second Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, 73–92. University of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA.Google Scholar
Diesing, Molly
1992 Indefinites. Cambridge – Massachusetts: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ebert, Christian & Cornelia Endriss
2004 Topic Interpretation and Wide Scope Indefinites. In Keir Moulton & Matthew Wolf (eds.), Proceedings of the Thirty-four Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, 203–214. University of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA.Google Scholar
É. Kiss, Katalin
1987 Configurationality in Hungarian. Budapest: Akadémiai Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
É. Kiss, Katalin
1992 Az egyszerű mondat szerkezete. [The structure of the simple sentence]. In Ferenc Kiefer (ed.), Strukturális magyar nyelvtan 1. Mondattan. [Structural Grammar of Hungarian 1. Syntax], 79–177. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
É. Kiss, Katalin
1994 Sentence Structure and Word Order. In Ferenc Kiefer & Katalin É. Kiss (eds.), The Syntactic Structure of Hungarian, 1–90. New York – San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
2002 Hungarian Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 An Adjunction Analysis of Quantifiers and Adverbials in the Hungarian sentence. Lingua 120. 506–526. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, Nomi
1997 The Dynamics of Focus Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fodor, Janet D.
1982 The Mental Representation of Quantifiers. In Stanly Peters & Esa Saarinen (eds.), Processes, Beliefs and Questions, 129–164. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Prosodic disambiguation in silent reading. In Masako Hirotani (ed.), Proceedings of the Thirty-second Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, 113–32. University of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA.Google Scholar
Gyuris, Beáta
2006 Esettanulmány a hatókör és az információs szerkezet kapcsolatáról [A Case Study about the Relation of Between Scope and Information Sturcture]. In Kálmán László (ed.), KB 120 – A titkos kötet. Nyelvészeti tanulmányok Bánréti Zoltán és Komlósy András tiszteletére [KB 120 – The Secret Volume. Lingusitic Studies in Honour of Bánréti Zoltán & Komlósy András], 103–116. Budapest: MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet – Tinta Kiadó.Google Scholar
2008 Stylistic postposing or something else? In Christopher Piñón & Szilárd Szentgyörgyi (eds.), Approaches to Hungarian 10, 187–216. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.Google Scholar
Gyuris, Beáta & Jackson Scott
submitted). Factors Affecting Scope in Hungarian. Glossa.
Hunyadi, László
1981 Remarks on the syntax and Semantics of Topic and Focus in Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 31. 107–136.Google Scholar
1996 Hungarian Sentence Structure and Metrical Prosody. Language Sciences 18. 139–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1999 The Outlines of a Metrical Syntax of Hungarian. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 46. 69–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Hungarian Sentence Prodosdy and Universal Grammar. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Ioup, Georgette
1975 Some Universals for Quantifier Scope. In John Kimball (ed.), Syntax and Semantics 4, 37–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ishihara, Shinichiro
2002 Invisible but Audible Wh-scope Marking: Wh constructions and deaccenting in Japanese. In Line Mikkelsen & Chris Potts (eds.), Proceedings of West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics 21, 180–193. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Kemp, Simon & Randolf C. Grace
2010 When Can Information from Ordinal Scale Variables Be Integrated? Psychological Methods 15 (4). 398–412. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kempson, Ruth M. & Annabel Cormack
1981 Ambiguity and Quantification. Linguistics and Philosophy 4. 259–309. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kitagawa, Yoshihisa
1990 Anti-scrambling. Ms., University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.Google Scholar
1994 Shells, Yolks, and Scrambled Eggs. In Merce González (ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society, 221–239. University of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA.Google Scholar
Kitagawa, Yoshihisa & Janet D. Fodor
2006 Prosodic Influence on Syntactic Judgments. In Gisbert Fanselow, Caroline Féry, Matthias Schlesewsky & Ralf Vogel (eds.), Gradience in grammar: Generative perspectives, 336–358. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika
1995 Stage-level and Individual-level Predicates. Papers on Quantification. Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred
1991 A Compositional Semantics for Multiple Focus Constractions. In Steven K. Moore & Adam Z. Wyner (eds.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory I, 257–280. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
2001 Quantifiying into Question Acts. Natural Language Semantics 9. 1–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Basic Notions of Information Structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55. 243–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuno, Susumu
1982 The Focus of the Question and the Focus of the Answer. In Robert Chametzky, Robinson Schneider & Kevin Tuite (eds.), Papers from the Parasession on Nondeclaratives, 134–157. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
1991 Remarks on Quantifier Scope. In Heizo Nakajima (ed.), Current English Linguistics in Japan, 261–287, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kurtzman, Howard S. & Maryellen C. MacDonald
1993 Resolution of Quantifier Scope ambiguities. Cognition 48. 243–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W.
1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar 2: Descriptive Application (Chapter 3: Nominals: Grounding and Quantification). 96–141. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, Feng-Hsi
1990 Scope and Specificity. PhD dissertation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
May, Robert
1985 Logical Form. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
1988 Ambiguities of Quantification and Wh: A reply to Williams. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 118–135.Google Scholar
Pafel, Jürgen
2006 Quantifier Scope in German. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Partee, Barbara H.
1991 Topic Focus and Quantification. In Steven K. Moore & Adam Z. Wyner (eds.), Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory I, 257–280. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
1999 Focus, Quantification and Semantics-pragmatics Issues. In Peter Bosch & Rob van der Sandt (eds.), Focus: Linguistics, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives, 213–231. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Portner, Paul & Katsuhiko Yabushita
2001 Specific Indefinites and the Information Structure Theory of Topics. Journal of Semantics 18(3). 271–297. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya
1976 The Syntactic Domain of Anaphora. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
1983 Anaphora and Semantic Interpretation. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Schütze, Carson T. & Jon Sprouse
2013 Judgment Data. In Robert J. Podesva & Devyani Sharma (eds.), Research Methods in Linguistics, 27–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Surányi, Balázs
2002 Multiple Operator Movements in Hungarian. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Szabolcsi, Anna
1981 The Semantics of Topic – focus Articulation. In Jeroen Groenendijk, Theo Janssen & Martin Stokhof (eds.), Formal methods in the study of language, 513–541. Amsterdam: Mathematical Centre.Google Scholar
1997 Strategies for scope taking. In Szabolcsi Anna (ed.), Ways of Scope Taking. 108–154. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Szendrői, Kriszta
2003 A Stress-based Approach to the Syntax of Hungarian Focus. The Linguistic Review 20(1). 37–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tunstall, Susanne Lynn
1998 The Interpretation of Quantifiers: Semantics and Processing. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Williams, Edwin
1988 Is LF Distinct from S-structure? A reply to May. Linguistic Inquiry 19. 135–146.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Kenesei, István & Anna Szeteli
2022. Surprise: Nonfinite Clause with Finite Complementizer. In A Life in Cognition [Language, Cognition, and Mind, 11], ► pp. 93 ff. DOI logo
Surányi, Balázs & Gergő Turi
2018. Quantifier scope in sentence prosody?. Acta Linguistica Academica 65:2-3 ► pp. 385 ff. DOI logo
Szabolcsi, Anna
2018. Strict and Non-strict Negative Concord in Hungarian: A Unified Analysis. In Boundaries Crossed, at the Interfaces of Morphosyntax, Phonology, Pragmatics and Semantics [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 94], ► pp. 227 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.