LINGUIST List 14.1743

Thu Jun 19 2003

Qs: Eng 'every' and anaphora

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  1. Norihiro Ogata, On anaphoras to "every"

Message 1: On anaphoras to "every"

 Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 13:33:36 +0000
From: Norihiro Ogata <norrytcct.zaq.ne.jp>
Subject: On anaphoras to "every"

Dear all,

I'm a formal semanticist and now I'm interested in the semantics of
generics. In the progress of this research, I could have find the
following examples which show the anaphoras to ''every''+N:

(1) Every rice-grower_i in Korea owns a wooden cart. Usually he_i gets
(it from his father. 2) Every Swiss male_i must do military
(service. He_i is required to do so by law.

On the other hand, I was concentrated to G. Carlson's ''unbound''
reading of ''every'' as follows:

(3) Every friend of John smokes.
(4) A master craftsman builds every house in this area.

(3-4) are ambiguous bewteen `universally quantified reading' and
`unbound reading'. In the unbound reading, the genericisty is
stronger and the domain of quantification is ''unbound'', i.e., past,
present, future, ideal worlds, etc.

Then I found some sort of similarity of unbound reading ''every'' with
''every'' which have its anaphora, and I asked to some native English
speakers if the following sentences are meaningful:

(5) Every fried of John smokes. (Usually) she also drugs. 
(6) A master (craftsman builds every house in this area. (Usually) it
is very (small.

The answers were all ''no''. 

I can agree this result when I think about the following example: (7)
Every farmer who owns a donkey beats it. *He is a sadist.

However, even (1)-(2), they rejected.

So I was confusing and, on the other hand, the both phenomena can be
related if (5)-(6) or more appropriate examples were acceptable.

So, I would like to ask to every English native speaker or linguists
of English if (5)-(6) or similar and more appropriate examples are
acceptable.

Please send the answer to
 norrytcct.zaq.ne.jp

Best regards,

Norihiro Ogata
Faculty of Language and Culture, Osaka University 

Subject-Language: English; Code: ENG
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