Focus And Quantifier Scope In English And Chinese

This thesis is a study of the relationship between focus and quantifier scope. It is assumed that pragmatic factors as well as grammatical factors are significant to how focus is determined and realized and how the ambiguity due to quantifier scope interaction can be eliminated. Based on the linguistic data from English and Chinese, this thesis analyzes the factors of linear order and quantifier difference which affect the interpretation of quantifier scope in English and Chinese, and probe into the ambiguity in quantifier scope interaction and its disambiguation.A detailed introduction to focus is given. Focus is a complex phenomenon involving almost all the subfields of linguistics, which has aroused many linguists' attention. But whether the focus of a sentence is determined by pragmatic factors or grammatical factors is still in controversy. To answer this question, we turn to the quantifier scope interaction, trying to approach focus from another way.In the literature, most of the studies on focus are about its definition, classification, manifestation, and association. Even though some of them concentrate on the association of quantificational adverbs with focus, few pay attention to focus and quantifier scope.