A Note on Superlatives and NPI Licensing

Yael Sharvit

(based on joint work with Rajesh Bhatt)

November 5, 2004, Time TBA

Abstract:

Bhatt (2002) observes that superlative relative clauses (with an intensional verb) support 'high' and 'low' readings.

  1. The longest book John said Tolstoy had written was Anna Karenina.
    'High' reading
    John: "Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina, Tom Sawyer, and Huck Finn."
    Of these, Anna Karenina is the longest.
    'Low' reading
    John: "Anna Karenina is the longest book Tolstoy wrote."

An NPI may disambiguate the sentence:

  1. The longest book John ever said Tolstoy had written was Anna Karenina.
    high *low
  2. The longest book John said Tolstoy had ever written was Anna Karenina.
    *high low
Because of the disambiguation, Bhatt argues for a reconstruction-based analysis of the 'low' reading: the superlative is 'reconstructed' below the intensional verb. Heycock (2003) argues that Bhatt's theory overgenerates, as not all verbs support a 'low' reading. She concludes that the reconstruction analysis is wrong. In this talk we will argue that: (a) Bhatt.s analysis does NOT overgenerate in Heycock's sense (that it to say, the readings that Heycock claims should be blocked are blocked for independent reasons; (b) Nevertheless, it IS true that reconstruction overgenerates, but in a completely different sense. Therefore, we propose a non-reconstruction analysis of 'low' readings, that doesn't overgenerate in the relevant sense.

Last Modified: October 25, 2004