Quantifiers and Discourse Processing

Abstract

Abstract Quantifiers are ubiquitous in natural language and, in addition to providing information about quantity, they serve important discourse functions. We outline several theoretical accounts of the functions that quantifiers perform in a discourse and the factors governing their interpretation, focusing on two specific topics that have received substantial attention from researchers working in linguistics and psychology. The first topic concerns the interpretation of pronominal anaphora in different quantification contexts, and we review evidence showing that the focusing effects of positive and negative quantifiers license different patterns of pronominal reference. The second topic concerns the interpretation of quantifiers that function as anaphors in a discourse, and we consider recent experimental evidence in relation to two current and highly influential theories of semantic interpretation.

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