Constraining scope in Glue Semantics

A hallmark of the Glue approach to the syntax-semantics interface is its clean and simple treatment of quantifiers and quantifier scope ambiguity, without the need to assume different syntactic structures for different scopes. One weakness, which has received renewed attention recently, is Glue’s inability to constrain such scope ambiguities when they should not occur. We propose a new means of encoding constraints on the relative scope of quantifiers, building on Fry’s (1997) analysis of negative polarity items. We believe that our proposal also holds promise for the analysis of other constraints on relative scope, including modifier scope and scope islands.