Illusive wide scope of universal quantifiers

It is widely believed that existential quantifiers can bring about the semantic effects of a scope which is wider than their actual syntactic scope (See Fodor & Sag (1982), Cresti (1995), Kratzer (1995), Reinhart (1995) and Winter (1995), among many others.) On the other hand, it is assumed that the syntactic scope of universal quantifiers can be determined unequivocally by the semantics. This paper shows that this second assumption is wrong; universal quantifiers can also bring about scope illusions, though in a very specific environment. In particular, we argue that in the environment of generic tense, universal quantifiers can show the semantic effects of a scope which is wider than the one that is actually realized at LF. Our argument has four steps. First, we show that in generic contexts, universal quantifiers escape standard “scope-islands” (Section 1). Second, we show how the effects of wide scope in generic contexts can be achieved without syntactic wide scope (Section 2.1). Third, we show that this result is actually forced on us, once we take seriously certain independent issues concerning the interpretation of generic tense (Sections 2.2 - 2.4). Finally, the semantics of generic tense and, in particular, its interaction with focus, will yield some intricate new predictions, which, as we show, are borne out (Sections 3 - 5)

Partition by exhaustification: Comments on Dayal 1996

In this paper I argue for a new constraint on questions, namely that a question denotation (a set of propositions) must map to a partition of a Stalnakerian Context-Set by point-wise exhaustification (point-wise application of the function Exh). The presupposition that Dayal attributes to an Answer operator follows from this constraint, if we assume a fairly standard definition of Exh (Krifka, 1995). But the constraint is more restrictive thereby deriving the sensitivity of higher order quantification to negative islands (Spector, 2008). Moreover, when combined with recent proposals about the nature of Exh – designed primarily to account for the conjunctive interpretation of disjunction (e.g. Bar-Lev and Fox, 2017) – Dayal’s presupposition follows only in certain environments. This observation allows for an account of the “mention-some” interpretation of questions that makes specific distributional predictions

Cost of Producing Beef with Different Types and Weights of Cattle

Currently, there is much interest in changing the U.S.D.A. grading standards. Some suggest that we completely eliminate the use of them. There are many reasons for this, but the major one is that many feel that the present system does not always correctly identify the most desirable carcasses. Many cattle now come to market at 15 to 18 months of age and are not marbled because of their youthfulness

Campylobacter jejuni Type VI Secretion System: Roles in Adaptation to Deoxycholic Acid, Host Cell Adherence, Invasion, and In Vivo Colonization

The recently identified type VI secretion system (T6SS) of proteobacteria has been shown to promote pathogenicity, competitive advantage over competing microorganisms, and adaptation to environmental perturbation. By detailed phenotypic characterization of loss-of-function mutants, in silico, in vitro and in vivo analyses, we provide evidence that the enteric pathogen, Campylobacter jejuni, possesses a functional T6SS and that the secretion system exerts pleiotropic effects on two crucial processes – survival in a bile salt, deoxycholic acid (DCA), and host cell adherence and invasion. The expression of T6SS during initial exposure to the upper range of physiological levels of DCA (0.075%–0.2%) was detrimental to C. jejuni proliferation, whereas down-regulation or inactivation of T6SS enabled C. jejuni to resist this effect. The C. jejuni multidrug efflux transporter gene, cmeA, was significantly up-regulated during the initial exposure to DCA in the wild type C. jejuni relative to the T6SS-deficient strains, suggesting that inhibition of proliferation is the consequence of T6SS-mediated DCA influx. A sequential modulation of the efflux transporter activity and the T6SS represents, in part, an adaptive mechanism for C. jejuni to overcome this inhibitory effect, thereby ensuring its survival. C. jejuni T6SS plays important roles in host cell adhesion and invasion as T6SS inactivation resulted in a reduction of adherence to and invasion of in vitro cell lines, while over-expression of a hemolysin co-regulated protein, which encodes a secreted T6SS component, greatly enhanced these processes. When inoculated into B6.129P2-IL-10[superscript tm1Cgn] mice, the T6SS-deficient C. jejuni strains did not effectively establish persistent colonization, indicating that T6SS contributes to colonization in vivo. Taken together, our data demonstrate the importance of bacterial T6SS in host cell adhesion, invasion, colonization and, for the first time to our knowledge, adaptation to DCA, providing new insights into the role of T6SS in C. jejuni pathogenesis

Focus, Parallelism and Accommodation

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Too Many Alternatives: Density, Symmetry and Other Predicaments

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Too Many Alternatives: Density, Symmetry and Other Predicaments

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