Comparing theories of quantifiers in than clauses: Lessons from downward-entailing differentials

Abstract

I investigate the effect of differential-phrase entailingness on the interpretation of comparative than clauses with quantificational subjects, a matter that has gone largely overlooked in the otherwise fecund recent literature. I show that only a subset of theories that derive the right readings for than clauses with quantifiers in the presence of an upward-entailing differential successfully generalize to cases with nonmonotone or downward-entailing differentials. The empirical paradigm presented here thus serves as an indispensable test suite for theories of comparatives and a useful probe for metatheoretical investigation. In particular, I show that theories in which the degrees associated with the than -clause-internal quantifier are not distributed over the matrix degree relation ( encapsulation theories) fail to generate the right readings with downward-entailing differentials (and they generally require ad hoc tweaks in order to handle nonmonotone differentials). Theories in which those degrees are distributed over the matrix degree relation ( entanglement theories) correctly derive the entire paradigm without further ado. I survey a number of recent theories of each type. BibTeX info