Intonational effects on English scopally-ambiguous sentences

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of intonation contour on two types of scopally ambiguous constructions in English: configurations with a universal quantifier in subject position and sentential negation (e.g., Every horse didn’t jump) and configurations with quantifiers in both subject and object positions (e.g., A girl saw every boy). There is much prior literature on the relationship between the fall-rise intonation and availability of inverse scope with quantifier-negation configurations. The present study has two objectives: (1) to examine whether the role of intonation in facilitating inverse scope is restricted to this configuration, or whether it extends to double-quantifier configurations as well; and (2) to examine whether fall-rise intonation fully disambiguates the sentence, or only facilitates inverse scope. These questions were investigated experimentally, via an auditory acceptability judgment task, in which native English speakers rated the acceptability of auditorily presented sentences in contexts matching surface-scope vs. inverse-scope readings. The results provide evidence that fall-rise intonation facilitates the inverse-scope readings of English quantifier-negation configurations (supporting findings from prior literature), but not those of double-quantifier configurations.