Higher-order readings of wh-questions

In most cases, a wh-question calls for an answer that names entity in the set denoted by extension of wh-complement. However, evidence from questions with necessity modals and collective predicates argues sometimes must be interpreted higher-order reading, which this question generalized quantifier. This paper investigates distribution compositional derivation readings wh-questions. First, I argue quantifiers can serve as semantic answers to wh-questions homogeneously positive. Next, on readings, observe wh-complement is singular-marked or numeral-modified answered elided disjunctions but not conjunctions. further present two ways account disjunction–conjunction asymmetry. uniform account, these admit because (but conjunctions) may satisfy atomicity requirement singular-marking cardinality numeral modification. reconstruction syntactically reconstructed, gives rise local uniqueness yields contradiction conjunctive answers.