LINGUIST List 22.215 Thu Jan 13 2011 Qs: Quantifier/State-of-Affairs Ambiguity Editor for this issue: Danielle St. Jean <daniellelinguistlist.org> We'd like to remind readers that the responses to queries are usually best posted to the individual asking the question. That individual is then strongly encouraged to post a summary to the list. This policy was instituted to help control the huge volume of mail on LINGUIST; so we would appreciate your cooperating with it whenever it seems appropriate. In addition to posting a summary, we'd like to remind people that it is usually a good idea to personally thank those individuals who have taken the trouble to respond to the query. To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm. Directory         1.     Neal Whitman , Quantifier/State-of-Affairs Ambiguity Message 1: Quantifier/State-of-Affairs Ambiguity Date: 12-Jan-2011 From: Neal Whitman <nwhitmanameritech.net> Subject: Quantifier/State-of-Affairs Ambiguity E-mail this message to a friend I would like to know if the following family of ambiguities in English exists in other languages. The idiom "No news is good news", with standard generalized- quantifier (GQ) semantics, would mean "There is no news x such that x is good news", i.e. there's no such thing as good news. In reality, it means something more like, "The state of affairs in which there is no news is good news." Similarly, the idiom "Too many cooks spoil the broth" with standard GQ semantics would mean that there are too many broth-spoiling cooks. In reality, it usually means, "When you have too many cooks, that spoils the broth." This ambiguity often occurs with the verb "mean". For example, "More money means more problems." With standard GQ semantics, this would mean that the amount of money that means an amount of problems exceeds some number X, exceeds some number Y. In reality, rather than having such a difficult-to-grasp meaning, it just means, "The state of affairs in which more money (than some contextually given amount) exists means that more problems (than some contextually given amount) exist." I have called this ambiguity the quantifier/state-of-affairs ambiguity, and it seems to occur with any indefinite NP in English. For example, the phrase "Most cooks spoil the soup", with the non-indefinite NP "most cooks", is unambiguous, with only its usual GQ semantics: "Of all the cooks, more than half of them spoil the broth." For further background on the subject, see the following blog entries on a poster I presented on this subject: http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/no-one-would-be-better/ http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/all-work-and-no-play/ My question is whether languages other than English have this kind of ambiguity. If so, can it occur with any NP, or only indefinites? Is it marked syntactically or morphogically? Thanks! Linguistic Field(s): Semantics Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 13-Jan-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.