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In:Advances in Iranian Linguistics II
Edited by Simin Karimi, Narges Nematollahi, Roya Kabiri and Jian Gang Ngui
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 361] 2023
► pp. 44–80

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Chapter 2
Persian quantifiers and their scope

 | Stony Brook University
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.361.02sha
Abstract
This paper investigates quantifiers and their scope in Persian, proposing that Persian is not a scope-rigid language, rather scope rigidity in this language is a construction-specific property controlled by scrambling. In other words, the availability of scrambling translates into lack of ambiguity (for similar arguments, see Hoji 1985, 1986 for Japanese; Ionin 2001 for Russian; Bobaljik & Wurmbrand 2012 for German). I further propose that in Persian, the nature and the size of scrambling is what dictates the presence or absence of scope ambiguity, whereby the vP-internal scrambling cases induce ambiguity while the vP-external ones do not. Examples from various sentences with two quantifiers show that although Persian exhibits a strong preference for surface scope in general, constructions involving inverse linking, for which only the inverse scope is possible, justify that a Quantifier Raising (QR) operation is available in this language, contradicting Karimi (2005). This paper draws on Bobaljik & Wurmbrand’s (2012) (B&W) constraint-based proposal and the negative correlation between scrambling and scope ambiguity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Quantifier types
    • 2.1Universal quantifiers
    • 2.2Existential quantifiers
  • 3.Doubly-Quantified sentences
    • 3.1Transitive sentences
    • 3.2Ditransitive sentences
    • 3.3Spray-Load sentences
    • 3.4Passive sentences
    • 3.5Scrambled sentences
  • 4.Diagnosing QR
    • 4.1Inverse linking
    • 4.2ACD
  • 5.The ¾ signature of Bobaljik & Wurmbrand (2012)
  • 6.The ambiguity puzzle
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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