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∃-Closure and Alternatives
UnavailablePublisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2021) 52 (1): 143–152.
Published: 01 January 2021
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This remark considers the interaction of Alternative Semantics (AS) with various binding operations—centrally, Predicate Abstraction (PA) and ∃-closure; less centrally, intensionalization. Contra Griffiths’s (2019) theory of ellipsis, I argue that it is technically problematic to appeal to the inherent incompatibility of PA and AS, while assuming the compatibility of ∃-closure and AS. I show that the formal pressures that characterize the interaction of PA and alternatives apply equally to ∃-closure and alternatives, and that it is accordingly impossible to define a true ∃-closure operation within what might be termed “standard” AS. A well-behaved AS reflex of ∃-closure can only be defined in compositional settings where a well-behaved AS reflex of PA is definable too. I consider various technical and empirical consequences of these points for Griffiths’s theory of ellipsis, and for linguistic theory more generally.