Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

dix minutes is a durational adverb. These elements are studied by Moltmann (1991),
and she argues that they do not delimit a single event. Rather, they are universal
quantifiers over the parts of some time interval. Thus, for Moltmann (1991), (105-a)
has a meaning corresponding to (105-b).
(105) a. John played the piano for two hours
b. “For every subinterval t of some interval of two hours there is an event
of playing piano by John which takes place at t" (Moltmann (1991:
633)).
Therefore, in (102), the PP does not delimit the time-span of a particular event, but
rather indicates that there were many events of water spouting within an interval spanning
ten minutes.
2.3 Conclusion
In summary, I have presented data and a new analysis of the Quantification at a Distance
construction in the Standard dialect of European French. I have proposed that
the quantification involved in QAD is binary quantification over the event argument
and the direct object. I have argued that such an analysis is necessary to account for
the semantics of the construction since, as I proved, the binary extension of beaucoup
is not Fregean, i.e. not reducible to the composition of unary quantifiers.
It has been observed for a long time that quantification within the domain of individuals
in natural language goes beyond the Frege boundary, i.e. must be analyzed in
terms of unreducible polyadic operators (van Benthem (1989); Keenan (1987; 1992)).
For example, Keenan (1992) argues that the different-different construction (106) must
be analyzed in terms of a binary quantifier, which he then proves to be unreducible.
66