On the Grammar and Processing of

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1、OntheGrammarandProcessingofProportionalQuantifiers:MostversusMoreThanHalfMartinHackl.PomonaCollegeAbstractProportionalquantifiershaveplayedacentralroleinthedevelopmentofformalsemanticsbecausetheysetabenchmarkfortheexpressivepowerneededtodescribequantificationinnaturallan

2、guage(BarwiseandCooper1981).Theproportionalquantifiermost,inparticular,suppliedtheinitialmotivationforadoptingGeneralizedQuantifierTheorybecauseitsmeaningisdefinableasrelationbetweensetsofindividuals,whicharetakentobesemanticprimitivesinGeneralizedQuantifierTheory.Thispa

3、perproposesanalternativeanalysisofmostthatdoesnottreatitasalexicalitemwhosemeaningisaccessiblewithoutthehelpofcompositionalprocesses.Instead,proportionalmostisanalyzedassuperlativeofmany(c.f.Bresnan1973).Twotypesofempiricalevidencearepresentedinsupportofthisview,bothexpl

4、oitingthefactthatonlyadecompositionalanalysisofproportionalquantifiersprovidesthemeanstogeneratedifferentlogicalformsforseeminglyequivalentstatementsoftheformmostABandmorethanhalfoftheAB.Keywords:Quantification,GeneralizedQuantifierTheory,Superlatives,Degrees,Verificatio

5、n,Psycholinguistics11.IntroductionFormalsemanticanalysesfocustheirattentiononcapturingthecorrectsetofentailmentpatternsassociatedwithaparticularexpression.Theyusuallydonotconcernthemselveswithcomprehensionorverificationinrealtime.Whilethisisaperfectlyreasonableandusefuls

6、trategy,semantictheoriesalsohavetheresponsibilitytofurnishthepiecesthataprocessingtheoryrequirestodrawsystematicdistinctionsthatoccurduringrealtimecomprehension.Whetheraparticulartheorymanagestoliveuptothisobligationdependstoalargeextentonwhattypeofsemanticprimitivesitas

7、sumessincethe“size”oftheprimitivesdeterminestheresolutionwithwhichthetheorycananalyzeitsphenomena.Inthedomainofquantification,questionsaboutthesemanticprimitiveshavebeenansweredmostprominentlywithintheframeworkofGeneralizedQuantifierTheory(GQT).AccordingtoGQT,quantificat

8、ioninnaturallanguageisaformofsecondorderpredication.Thecenterpieceofaquantificationalstructureisanexpre