Types of Predicates and the Representation of Existential Readings (original) (raw)

The main theoretical proposal to be made in this paper is that existential force may have two sources. It may be contributed by either indefinite arguments or by certain predicates. I will argue against the current view that subsumes BNPs under the analysis of indefinites and assume instead that BNPs are property-denoting expressions (see also McNally (1995» , which as such cannot contribute existential force. The obvious problems regarding semantic composition raised by this hypothesis can be solved by defining a class of predicates that are able to apply to property-denoting arguments. I will argue that the crucial property of such predicates is that they allow (some of) their argument-variables to be bound by existential closure and correlatively translate as lambda-abstracts over the properties that restrict those argument-variables. This proposal allows us to derive the (correct part) of the Milsark-Carlson constraints on the existential reading of BNPs from type-matching constraints.