<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	>
<channel>
	<title>Comments on: I feel compelled.</title>
	<atom:link href="http://kevinmcgowan.info/blog/2007/09/20/i-feel-compelled/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://kevinmcgowan.info/blog/2007/09/20/i-feel-compelled/</link>
	<description>yet another linguistics blog.</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:28:21 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3</generator>
		<item>
		<title>By: John Lawler</title>
		<link>http://kevinmcgowan.info/blog/2007/09/20/i-feel-compelled/#comment-6</link>
		<dc:creator>John Lawler</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Sep 2007 20:51:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://kevinmcgowan.info/blog/2007/09/20/i-feel-compelled/#comment-6</guid>
		<description>N ote the twisted scopes of the presupposed negative in &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; and the square modal &lt;i&gt;must&lt;/i&gt;.  What &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; mean is something like 
   &lt;b&gt;NECESSARY (Only x (Scientist x &#38; Qualified x)) (DO_Research (x) &lt;/b&gt;

Which is ambiguous, of course.  This is produced because modal auxiliaries like &lt;i&gt;must&lt;/i&gt; are very tightly constrained positionally in English, while the negative quantifier &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; can oprionally precede any constituent containing the negative focus, so it can wind up outside the scope of the modal, like this sentence does, producing the wrong effect..

To fix the construction, you have to make the syntax resemble the semantics, so one solution is that the &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; works better if it's isolated with the agent at the end of the sentence -- well inside the scope of the square modal -- a situation that simply applies Passive.  If you passivize this clause, you &lt;b&gt;gotta&lt;/b&gt; keep the agent.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>N ote the twisted scopes of the presupposed negative in <i>only</i> and the square modal <i>must</i>.  What <i>they</i> mean is something like<br />
   <b>NECESSARY (Only x (Scientist x &amp; Qualified x)) (DO_Research (x) </b></p>
<p>Which is ambiguous, of course.  This is produced because modal auxiliaries like <i>must</i> are very tightly constrained positionally in English, while the negative quantifier <i>only</i> can oprionally precede any constituent containing the negative focus, so it can wind up outside the scope of the modal, like this sentence does, producing the wrong effect..</p>
<p>To fix the construction, you have to make the syntax resemble the semantics, so one solution is that the <i>only</i> works better if it&#8217;s isolated with the agent at the end of the sentence &#8212; well inside the scope of the square modal &#8212; a situation that simply applies Passive.  If you passivize this clause, you <b>gotta</b> keep the agent.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
</channel>
</rss>
