Indefinites in a type-shifting perspective

Abstract

Indefinite NPs like a student, two cats have weak, predicative interpretations, and license discourse anaphora. Although NPs like no student, at most two cats have weak, predicative readings as well, they do not license discourse anaphora. This paper uses type-shifting mechanisms and closure operations to develop a unified analysis of monotone increasing and decreasing indefinite NPs. This leads to some insightful connections between flexible type theory, File Change Semantics/Discourse Representation theory and Dynamic Montague Grammar.