Roger Schwarzschild

Abstract. An extended noun phrase may contain an expression that describes some dimension. Weight is described by each of the prenominal expressions inheavy rock,too much ballast,2 pound rock,2 pounds of rocks.The central claim of this paper is that the position of these types of expressions within the noun phrase limits the kinds of dimensions they may describe. The limitations have to do with whether or not the dimension tracks relevant part‐whole relations. An analogy is made between these constraints and the well‐known constraints on thematic relations that are incurred by the position of a noun phrase in a clause. A proposal is made about the meanings of expressions liketoo muchand2 poundswhich explains their common cross‐categorial distribution and this informs the analysis of their use in noun phrases. A position is taken on the meaning of the count mass distinction which, in conjunction with the hypothesis about dimensions, explains asymmetries in the distribution of prenominal adjectives with count and mass nouns.

I investigate the possibility that the apparent unique scope‐taking abilities of indefinites can be explained in terms of quantifier domain restriction, without departing from the classical view of indefinites as existential quantifiers over individuals whose scope is syntactically constrained in the same way as other quantifiers. The key idea is that when the domain of a quantifier is reduced to a singleton set, it becomes effectively scopeless. Indefinites, on this view, are freer than other quantifiers to make use of this option. I argue that alternative accounts which put the action in the semantics or the syntax of indefinites still need a pragmatic mechanism of quantifier domain restriction, so that to demonstrate the necessity for such approaches, one needs to explain why domain restriction down to singletons is not possible.