Linguist Forum
Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: mallu on April 22, 2015, 08:14:02 PM
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See the sentence
In English orthography, a U always follows a q.
The first reading is obvious. q is always followed by a u.isn't it.
A paper (Krifka, Manfred. "Basic notions of information structure." Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55.3 (2008): 243-276.) tells another reading is also possible in which the sentence would mean that every u is followed by Q. I am oblivious to that reading. Could someone explain it to me?
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I assume this is about the character q, whose name is pronounced "cue"? Hmm... maybe not "followed" as in the order after, but rather as in along with.
Q is always followed (in order) by a u, and u is always followed (accompanied) by a q.
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The obvious reading is that what follows a q is always a u; the non-obvious and false reading is that what u always follows is a q. I don't know that I can persuade you that both readings are available, but that's what it's about. I dunno if this helps, but I think it's because "follows" in this strict ordering sense implies a biconditional relationship (2 follows 1 and 1 is followed by 2); but using "follow" in that sense is a mixing of metaphors, since r alphabetically follows q and that's the only sense in which the strict-ordering concept of "follow" holds.
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the non-obvious and false reading is that what u always follows is a q.
Whether that denies the possibilty of strings such as pu,tu ..etc.Correct me if I am wrong
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Right, the other reading denies the possibility of pu etc.
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For all Q [U follows]
For all U [it follows Q]
Different scope for the quantifier. Of course "always" here is really quantifying over situations, but it ends up being logically equivalent to "all Qs", etc.