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DISCUSSION NOTE Scope, structure, and expert systems: A reply to Kuno et al. Joseph Aoun and Yen-hui Audrey Li University of Southern California This article is a reply to Kuno et al. 1999, which claims that a structural approach to scope should be replaced by an expert system. But the alleged theoretical and empirical problems faced by the structural accounts for scope are based on assumptions or interpretations that are not adopted in the structural accounts. Further, there are problems with the characterization and execution of the expert system, causing difficulty in the understanding and application of the system intra- and interlinguistically; the expert system is not empirically adequate and does not accommodate idiolectal variations. Finally, the expert system misses important correlations between scope and other properties in the grammar, such as binding, that follow straightforwardly from a structural approach. A structural approach to scope should not be abandoned in favor of an expert system.* Introduction. Kuno, Takami and Wu (1999) examine in great detail Aoun and Li's syntactic analysis of quantifier scope interaction (1993), further extending the discussion to other structural approaches, such as May 1977, 1985, Huang 1982, 1995, Hoji 1985, Williams 1986, 1988, Hornstein 1995, Kitahara 1996 and Stroik 1996, and raise the following three issues. (1) a. There are serious theoretical problems with Aoun and Li's syntactic account of scope interpretations for the double object and topicalization constructions b.There are ambiguous sentences that Aoun and Li's and other syntactic analyses predict to be unambiguous. c.There are unambiguous sentences that Aoun and Li's and other syntactic analyses predict to be ambiguous. Kuno et al. proceed to argue that, in order to achieve empirical adequacy, a syntactic account of quantifier scope interactions should be abandoned in favor of their expert system. They further suggest that wide idiolectal variations in quantifier scope interpretations are due to differences among speakers with respect to the relative weights that the relevant principles receive in their respective expert system. In this reply, we first address the issues raised in la and show that they result from some interpretations of Aoun and Li's work that are not necessarily warranted. We then discuss the empirical problems faced by the structural accounts as presented by Kuno et al. (Ib, c) and show that the alleged empirical problems are based on some assumptions that do not necessarily hold within the structural accounts. It is not the case that the expert system, briefly sketched in ยง2, is indeed more adequate as a theory of scope interactions. The establishment and execution ofthe experts are not as convincing as they are proposed to be. The empirical advantage of this expert system disappears * The writing of this reply would not have been possible without Richard Larson's help. Many of the important points in this paper are Larson's ideas. We are greatly indebted to him. We are also thankful for the comments from the Language referees and the help from the associate editor and the editor of Language. Any errors or misinterpretations are our responsibilities. 133 134LANGUAGE, VOLUME 76, NUMBER 1 (2000) when relevant data are more closely examined. Finally, the expert system misses important crosslinguistic correlations between scope and other properties in the grammar that are sensitive to structures, such as binding. Such correlations follow straightforwardly from the structural accounts. 1. Structures of double object and topic constructions. Let us begin with the issues raised in la. Kuno et al. argue that Aoun and Li's analysis of the double object and topicalization structures suffers from theoretical problems. 1.1. Double object constructions. In order to understand the alleged problem with the double object structures, we need to briefly sketch some aspects of Aoun and Li's analysis. Aoun and Li's analysis relies on two principles: the minimal binding requirement (MBR) in 2 and the scope principle in 3: (2)Minimal binding requirement (MBR): Variables must be bound by the most local potential A'-binder. (3)Scope principle: An operator A may have scope over an operator B iff A c-commands B or an A'-element in the chain headed by the operator. In the configuration 4, the quantificational...

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