A Compositional Semantic Approach to Distributivity over an Unarticulated Argument

Abstract

This paper discusses distributive interpretations over an argument which is not overtly realized in the sentence. Observing some pragmatic factors involved in the interpretation, this paper suggests how the relevant interpretations should be correctly captured in a compositional manner. Specifically, we propose that a contextual argument should be available for the LF structure of the distributive construction and get involved in the semantic derivation. This way, we can successfully derive the complicated distributive interpretations of the problematic constructions in a compositional manner.