This dissertation argues that in the context of constituent questions
with quantifiers, there is a particular interpretation (i.e. the pair-list
(PL)-interpretation) that, when understood properly, tells us if and how
the wh-phrase has moved. In particular, the thesis argues that in a constituent
question with a universal quantifier, syntactic reconstruction of the wh-phrase
below the quantifier is the source of scope ambiguities. I argue, based
on the interaction of PL-readings with binding conditions A and C, that
syntactic reconstruction of the wh-phrase below the quantifier is necessary
for the PL-readings or family-of-questions interpretation to be available.
The thesis takes as a starting point the assumption, fundamental to the
approaches of May (1985), Aoun and Li (1993), and Chierchia (1993); that
wh-quantifier interaction is subject to a nesting-crossing asymmetry. Two
things are shown in the first two chapters: 1) that the subject-object asymmetry
is a relative phenomenon depending on the type of the quantifier used (whether
one uses each vs. every) and the type of the wh-phrase extracted (e.g. a
which-phrase vs. a how many-phrase), and 2), questions with quantifiers exemplifying
nesting configurations are in fact unambiguous when reconstruction of the
wh-phrase is blocked by binding theoretic principles. The data show that
nesting is insufficient, whereas reconstruction is a necessary condition
for the availability of PL-readings. The proper treatment of wh-quantifier
interaction is therefore one that treats the phenomenon in terms of reconstruction.
The second part of the thesis argues that reconstruction is necessary
for PL-readings, because such interpretations are a particular case of variable
binding in which the universal quantifier binds an implicit variable in one
of the copies of the wh-phrase, which is analyzed as a skolemized choice
function as in Kratzer's (1998) theory of indefinites. It is argued on the
basis of empirical considerations that WCO is irrelevant contra Chierchia
(1993) because WCO does not apply in the case of implicit variables.
The third part of the dissertation shows that the reconstruction view
of PL-readings opens up the possibility of using such interpretations as
a diagnostic for successive cyclicity (i.e. to tell us if and how the wh-phrase
has moved). It is argued that using the distribution of PL-readings as a
diagnostic for cyclicity can shed some light on the phenomenon of clitic
doubling in Spanish. In addition, by comparing the interaction of overtly
displaced wh-phrases with quantifiers, on the one hand, and the interaction
of wh in situ and universal quantifiers, on the other, I have argued that
whereas overtly moved wh-phrases move in successive cyclic fashion, wh-phrases
in situ do not get their scope via successive cyclicity.