Pragmatics and quantificational dependencies

The dependency relation in quantificational dependencies (QDs) is analyzed here as a non-assertive DP defining relation that maps from given to new information, a form of D(iscourse)-linking (Pesetsky, D., 1987. Wh-in-situ: movement and unselective binding. In: Reuland, E.J., and ter Meulen, A.G.B. (Eds.), The Representation of (In)definiteness. MIT Press Cambridge, pp. 98–129). Given and new information are analyzed by means of their binding structures: Given information is bound, and hence fixed at text-level while new information is a local phenomenon. Every multiple DP, under this analysis new information, is linked by a dependency relation to a local given DP, such that the multiple DP is then necessarily specific under the D-linking relation. Drawing on Farkas (Farkas, D.F., 1997. Evaluation indices and scope. In: Szabolcsi, A. (Ed.), Ways of Scope Taking. Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht, pp. 189–215), the D-linking dependency in QDs translates into a local dependency of functions that assign values to the variables contributed by DPs. Turkish data show that contrast and Focus operators may induce QDs, without the overt minimal partitioning elicited by a strong determiner on the given DP. This article proposes that the Only Effect that is associated with contrast and Focus operators instantiates a shift in the assertive force of the proposition by introducing a negative assertion of the relative alternatives to the focused element. The result is that the lexical predicate is demoted to non-assertive D-linking status. In this role it may sustain the dependency that defines QDs, and it does.