Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

applies to these elements after they have been applied to the CONCORD rule. In other
words, I proposed that, in principle, negative quantifiers can be interpreted as unary
quantifiers; this is what creates the double negation readings in Standard French 8 . If
negative quantifiers can be interpreted as unary quantifiers, then, when CONCORD has
not applied, we do not expect then to block Split-Combien; however, in the basic cases
that we have looked at so far, elements like personne do obligatorily block combien.
One way of resolving this is to propose that there is a convention in Standard
French in which CONCORD is applied before function application in structures with
multiple anti-additive quantifiers. This is an attractive proposal because, by far, the
most salient reading of a sentence like Personne a rien fait is negative concord: ‘no
one did anything’. In fact, in order to be sure to obtain a double negation reading for
this sentence, it is necessary to focus the second quantifier.
(48) Personne a RIEN fait
No one has NOTHING done
‘No one did NOTHING’
So, in other words, perhaps it is better to suppose that, like in Québec French, CON-
CORD is obligatory in SF; however, in this dialect, under certain conditions that are
not met in Split-Combien questions, function application can be used to create a double
negation reading.
In summary, I have proposed that polyadic quantifiers intervene in the Split-Combien
construction because they preemptively bind the direct object that combien is supposed
to target. If we move them to a place where they cannot bind the de phrase, or interpret
them as unary quantifiers, the “Relativized Minimality" effects go away.
Note that even though I proposed that the beaucoup class of quantifiers were unary
8 Note that, since the application of CONCORD is obligatory in Québec French, I predict that elements
like jamais and personne should always intervene in Split-Combien, as, indeed, they do.
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