This homework assignment is OPTIONAL. It is intended to allow students who didnŐt have control of doing scope ambiguities or discourse scorecards another opportunity to test their understanding.
It is due on Wednesday, March 12. However we welcome submissions before that point to increase the chances of our being able to return them to you by the last day of class. You may concentrate on the parts which will be of most benefit to you. We will comment on whichever parts of this that you choose to submit without prejudice toward incompleteness.
The following sentence is ambiguous because of the two quantifier phrases two pictures of his sister and everyone in the room:
1. Jason showed everyone in the room two pictures of his sister.
Provide the two logical forms that represent the scope ambiguity. Explain the difference in the two readings and say which logical form corresponds to which reading.
The following sentence is ambiguous because of the occurrence of a quantifier phrase and the negation expressed by nŐt:
2. Marcia didnŐt answer every question on the exam.
Provide the two logical forms that represent the scope ambiguity and explain the difference between the two readings.
Make up a discourse of three sentences which meets the following conditions:
á In the first sentence two novel discourse markers are introduced by indefinite descriptions.
á In the second sentence, one of the discourse markers serves as the referent of a pronoun.
á In the third sentence, the other discourse marker introduced in sentence 1 is made the referent of a definite description.
Annotate your discourse by underlining the relevant terms and indicating how they are connected with discourse markers.
NB: no logical forms are required to accomplish this task. Just text and annotations. However it will illustrate whether you understand the underlying concepts.
Do logical forms for the sentences below and then illustrate how each would be modified in the construction of a discourse scorecard which contains them (in this order).
3. Martha saw a spider on the table.
4. She picked the spider up and put it outside.