Differential Quantifier Scope: Q-Raising versus Q-Feature Checking

A recent influential approach to Q-scope is initiated by Beghelli (1993) and developed in Beghelli and Stowell (1994, 1995; 1997) and Szabolcsi (1997), who posit that quantifiers move to check formal Q-features in a hierarchy of specific Q-related functional projections. In the first part of this paper it is shown that the Q-feature checking approach is seriously flawed both conceptually and in terms of descriptive adequacy, and it is also demonstrated (contra Szabolcsi) that Hungarian in fact does not furnish evidence in its favor.

An account is proposed that retains QR of generalized quantifiers and that assumes that focus is involved in the interpretation of modified numeral expressions, which are taken not be GQs, building on Krifka (1999). The present approach to differential Q-scope relies on the interaction of independently motivated mechanisms: (i) A-chain formation (wherein A-reconstruction is sensitive to interveners à la Boeckx 2001), (ii) existential closure of choice function variables à la Reinhart, (iii) focusing, and (iv) QR.