Multiple Syntactic Functions and Bipartite Interpretation of NPs

Introduction NPs like other constituents generally have syntactic functions that are associated with specific interpretations. They may not only have one such semantically relevant syntactic function, but also a combination of them. Syntacticians have traditionally directed their attention to only a certain number of semantically relevant syntactic functions of NPs, in particular to the status of an NP as an argument, an anaphor, a variable, or quantifier. This paper examines a new type (or new types) of such semantically relevant syntactic functions. These functions have common syntactic characteristics that distinguish them from more familiar syntactic functions. Furthermore, these functions are associated with semantic operations of a specific type. The semantic content of these functions, again, differs in a number of characteristic properties from the semantic content of traditional syntactic functions. The type of semantic content, however, resembles in these properties distributivity, i.e. the distributive interpretation of predicates. But it can be shown that, unlike the semantic effects of the syntactic functions discussed, distributive interpretation is a semantic effect that is not associated with a specific syntactic function, but rather associated with lexical predicates in general. I first illustrate the semantic content of this new type of syntactic function with reciprocals introducing the essential characteristics of this content, namely three diagnostic semantic properties and the alternation between nominal and adverbial expression of this content. Then, I compare this content with distributivity, first semantically, then syntactically. In the later case, I show that reciprocals, but not distributivity, requires a specific syntactic relation for that content and furthermore that the specific syntactic relation is distinct from more familiar syntactic relations, for instance those involved with overt wh movement or wh movement at LF or the relation between a 'bound' plural pronoun and a plural antecedent. In the next section, I examine a construction that involves the same type of semantic operation, namely same / different in the internal reading (Carlson 1987). In the discussion of same / different, I show that apparent differences between the syntactic relations involved with reciprocals and same / different can be explained by the fact that reciprocals have an additional semantically relevant syntactic function beside being 'reciprocity expressions', namely the function of being an anaphor. I then argue that the semantic operation of reciprocals and same / different is also involved in constructions like English reflexives and adverbs like individually. Finally, I examine two other constructions with respect to the syntactic relation and the type of semantic operation in question, a total of and comparative superlatives. The latter construction in particular turns out to exhibit exactly the same syntactic constraints as same / different.