draft of November 2011

Indeed, this is the analysis proposed by Cecchetto (2001) who discusses cases of clld-ed
indefinites interpreted in the scope of IP internal quantifiers. For instance, (2) is ambiguous
between a wide scope reading for the indefinite and a wide scope reading for the universal.
(2) a. un articolo di Chomsky ogni studente l’ha letto
an article of Chomsky every student it.cl-has read
An article of Chomsky, every student has read it.
However, there are two unexpected facts for the view that clld and Topicalisation are
different (PF) realisations of the same structure. The first is that Italian clld is rather
exceptional in allowing ambiguous readings for clld-ed indefinites. For instance, in Greek,
clld-ed indefinites can only admit wide-scope interpretations (Iatridou 1995; Alexopoulou
and Kolliakou 2002) as indicated in (3). Mia kokini fusta resists the opaque or de dicto reading,
as indicated by the infelicity of the continuation in (3b) (Iatridou 1995; Anagnostopoulou 1994;
Alexopoulou and Kolliakou 2002). 2 Similarly, ena artrho tu Chomsky cannot be interpreted
under the scope of the universal in (4).
(3) a. mia kokini fusta tin psahno edho ke meres
a red skirt it look-for-1sg here and days
I’ve been looking for a red skirt for a few days ...
b. =ke de boro na vro kamia pu na m’aresi
and not can-1sg subj find-1sg none
... and I cannot find any that I like.
that subj me-please-3sg
c. ke de boro na thimitho pu tin eho vali
and not can-1sg subj remember-1sg where her.cl have-1sg put
... and cannot remember where I put it. (Alexopoulou and Kolliakou 2002)
(4) ena artrho tu Chomsky to diavase kathe fititis
an article the-gen Chomsky it-cl read-3sg each student-nom
There’s an article of Chomsky that every student read (only wide scope for indefinite).
Second, Greek employs Topicalisation when a non-referential or de dicto interpretation of the
indefinite topic is intended.
2 We mark infelicity with =.
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