Intervention tracks scope-rigidity in Japanese?
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine1 and Hadas Kotek2
1

National University of Singapore mitcho@nus.edu.sg
2
New York University hadas.kotek@nyu.edu

Abstract. Certain quantifiers are known to disrupt the interpretationof wh-in-situ (Beck 2006 and many others). In this literature on intervention effects, the precise characterization of the set of interveners as wellas the nature of intervention have been the subject of continued debate.
Building on Shibata’s (2015a) work on disjunction and other work on the
behavior of quantifiers in Japanese, we offer a new generalization concerning the nature of intervention in Japanese: A quantifier is a potential
intervener if and only if it is scope-rigid. This generalization is explainedby — and in turn supports — Kotek’s (2017) account of intervention effects as reflecting a deep incompatibility between Predicate Abstraction
and the pointwise computation of Rooth-Hamblin alternatives.

1

Introduction

Over the past 30 years, a large and growing literature has described intervention
effects in Japanese wh-questions. Descriptively, this refers to the inability of an
in-situ wh-phrase to be preceded by certain quantificational elements, called interveners (Hoji 1985, Hagstrom 1998, Kim 2002, Beck 2006, Tomioka 2007:a.o.).
Consider (1a–b), where the wh-mo NPI serves as an intervener. The word orderin (1a) is ungrammatical, but the question improves by scrambling the interrogative wh-word over the intervener (1b).3 A general schema is in (2).
(1)

A canonical intervention example:(Tomioka 2007:1571–1572)
a. * Dare-mo nani-oyoma-nak-atta-no?
who-mo what-acc read-neg-past-qb.

(2)

Nani-odare-moyoma-nakat-ta-no?
read-neg-past-q
what-acc who-mo‘What did no one read?’Intervention schema (hierarchical):a. * [CP C...
intervener [ ... wh ... ] ]
b.

?

X

X

[CP C ... wh i ... intervener [ ... ti ... ] ]We would like to thank anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and Minako
Erlewine for discussion of judgments. Errors are each other’s.
3
Throughout the paper, interrogative wh are in italics and quantifiers of interest(potential interveners) — as well as sentential negation below — are in bold.

The set of interveners and the nature of intervention itself have been thesubject of much debate. Existing theories have tied intervention to the semantics
of focus (Kim 2002, Beck 2006, Beck and Kim 2006), quantification (Beck 1996),
topichood (Grohmann 2006), prosody (Tomioka 2007), (anti-)additivity (Mayr2014), and semantic type-mismatch (Li and Law 2016).
In this paper, we offer a new generalization for intervention-hood in Japanese(3), building on an observation regarding disjunction in Shibata (2015a), andpresent a principled explanation for this pattern of intervention effects in Japanese.
(3)

Generalization: Intervention correlates with scope-taking
Scope-rigid quantifiers above an in-situ wh cause intervention. Quantifiers that allow scope ambiguities — i.e., those that allow reconstruction
below wh — do not.

Following Kotek (2017), we derive this generalization as a corollary of a logicalincompatibility between Predicate Abstraction and Rooth-Hamblin alternative
computation (see e.g. Shan 2004, Novel and Romero 2009, Ciardelli, Roelofsen,
and Theiler 2017, Charlow 2017).

2

Scope-rigidity and intervention

2.1

Shibata (2015a) on disjunction

Shibata (2015a) notes that the scope of different disjunctors correlates with
their status as interveners; see (4–5). Ka-disjunction is scope-rigid with respect
to negation, and acts as an intervener. At the same time, naishi -disjunction leads
to scope ambiguities and is not an intervener. (We discuss the use of sentential
negation for evaluating scope-rigidity in section 3.2 below.) In all intervention examples here, scrambling the wh-word above the intervener rescues the structure,
as in (1–2) above, but we omit this data for reasons of space.
(4)

ka-disjunction is scope-rigid; naishi is not:a. [Taro-ka Jiro]-ga ko-nak-atta.
Taro-or Jiro-nom come-neg-past‘Taro or Jiro didn’t come.’b. [Taro-naishi Jiro]-ga ko-nak-atta.
Taro-orJiro-nom come-neg-past‘Taro or Jiro didn’t come.’(5)(Shibata 2015a:23)
Xor > not, *not > or(Shibata 2015a:96)

Xor > not, Xnot > orka is an intervener; naishi is not:a. ??? [Taro-ka Jiro]-ga nani -oyon-da-no?
Taro-or Jiro-nom what-acc read-past-Q
b. X [Taro-naishi Jiro]-ga nani -oyon-da-no?
Taro-orJiro-nom what-acc read-past-Q‘What did [Taro or Jiro] read?’(Hoji 1985:264)(Shibata 2015a:98)

The conclusion we draw from this data is that intervention cannot be predictedby the semantics of the quantificational elements alone, since the two disjunctors
have equivalent denotations, differing only in their possible scopes at LF.

2.2

Establishing the correlation

We present additional data to show that Shibata’s observed correlation goes beyond disjunction and generalizes to other quantificational elements in Japanese:scope-rigidity with respect to sentential negation correlates with interventionhood. Most of the individual examples and judgments here have been reported
in the existing literature on Japanese, but have not been previously collected tohighlight this correlation.4
First, we show another pair of quantifiers with identical meanings — whmo universal quantifiers5 and subete ‘all’ — which vary in their scope-rigidity
with respect to negation and concomitantly in their status as interveners. Likewith disjunction, only the scope-rigid quantifier is an intervener. This is shown
through (6–7).
(6)

wh-mo universal quantifier is scope-rigid; subete is not:a. Da’re-o-mo tsukamae-nak-atta.
who–acc-mo catch-neg-past‘pro did not catch anyone.’X

every > not, *not > everyb. [Subete-no mondai]-otoka-nak-atta.
all-genproblem-acc solve-neg-past‘pro did not solve every problem.’4(Mogi 2000:59)

X

every > not, Xnot > every

Translations and glosses for examples from Japanese texts are contributed by the firstauthor. Uncredited examples such as (6a) and (7b) etc. were constructed by the firstauthor with judgments confirmed with one other native speaker, and these patterns
accord with generalizations discussed in the literature, as noted. Some spelling has
also been changed for uniformity.
5
As has been widely noted, there are two, superficially similar wh-mo forms inJapanese: the universal quantifier series and the NPI/n-word series. However, these
forms are easily distinguishable as (a) universal wh-mo but not the NPI series preserve original pitch accents on the wh-word and (b) universal wh-mo but not the NPI
series allow case markers; see e.g. Aoyagi and Ishii (1994). On both counts, the form
here is clearly a universal wh-mo. (The ’ indicates that the first syllable of da’re-mobears the pitch accent in (6a), echoing the pitch accent on the bare wh-word da’re.)
The judgment here is predicted by the generalization that the universal wh-mo
takes scope in the pronounced position of the particle mo and cannot reconstruct
into a VP-internal base position (Yatsushiro 2009), and therefore cannot scope undernegation; see also section 3.2.

(7)wh-mo is an intervener; subete is not:6
a.

??

b.

X

Da’re-mo-ga nani -okai-mashi-ta-ka?
who-mo-nom what-acc buy-polite-past-Q
Intended: ‘What did everyone buy?’(Hoji 1985:270)[Subete-no gakusei]-ga dono-mondai -o
toi-ta-no?
all-genstudent-nom which-problem-acc solve-past-Q‘Which problem(s) did every student solve?’

The focus particles -mo ‘also’ and -sae ‘even’ pattern together in taking obligatory wide scope with respect to sentential negation and in being interveners.7
We will discuss the ‘only’ particle -dake in detail in the following section.
(8)

Focus particles are scope-rigid:(Shibata 2015b:235)

Taro-mo/sae
ko-nak-atta.
Taro-also/even come-neg-past‘{Even} Taro {also} didn’t come.’ Xeven/also > not, *not > even/also(9)-mo ‘also’ is an intervener:(Hasegawa 1995:119)* Hanako-mo nani -oka-tta-no?
Hanako-also what-acc buy-past-Q
Intended: ‘What did HanakoF also buy?’ (in addition to other people)(10) -sae ‘even’ is an intervener:?

(Yanagida 1996:30)* John-wa Mary-ni-sae nani -ooku-tta-no?
John-top Mary-to-even what-acc send-past-Q
Intended: ‘What did John send even to Mary?’

Next we consider the so-called NPIs ‘only’ -shika and wh-mo (see footnote
5). We follow Kataoka (2006) and Shimoyama (2011) in taking -shika and whmo to be quantifiers which obligatorily take wide scope over a local negation.
See these works for their evidence for these claims from variable binding (forKataoka) and the scope of these operators with respect to other quantifiers. As
predicted by our generalization, these items are also interveners for wh-in-situ.
See (11) for -shika and example (1) above for the wh-mo NPI.
(11) -shika NPI ‘only’ is an intervener:?

6(Takahashi 1990:134)* John-shika
nani -otabe-nak-atta-no?
John-onlyNPI what-acc eat-neg-past-Q
Intended: ‘What did only John eat?’

Tomioka (2007:1574) states “...subete-no-/zenbu-no-NP are not interveners and canc-command wh-phrases at S-structure without making the sentence deviant.”
7
See Shibata (2015a) for one account for the obligatory scope-rigidity of focus particles.

Finally, we turn to indefinites and numerals. Examples (12–13) below showthat wh-ka indefinites are scope-rigid and act as interveners:8(12) Indefinite wh-ka is scope-rigid:(Mogi 2000:59)[Ikutsu-ka-no
mondai]-otoka-nak-atta
how.many-ka-gen problem-acc solve-neg-past
X‘pro did not solve some problems.’

some > not, *not > some(13) Indefinite wh-ka is an intervener:(Hoji 1985:269)* Dare-ka-ga nani -onomi-masi-ta-ka
who-ka-nom what-acc drink-polite-past-Q‘What did someone drink?’
This contrasts with the behavior of modified numerals, which are not scope-rigid
and are also not interveners:(14) Modified numerals are not scope rigid:(Shibata 2015b:66)[Go-nin-ijyoo-no gakusei]-ga ko-nak-atta
5-cl-or.more-gen student-nom come-neg-past‘Five or more students didn’t come.’X(≥ 5) > not, Xnot > (≥ 5)(15) Modified numerals are not interveners:
X[Go-nin-ijyoo-no
gakusei]-ga dono-hon-oyon-da-no?
five-cl-or.more-gen student-nom which-book-acc read-past-Q‘Which book(s) did five or more students read?’

2.3

Supporting data from -dake ‘only’

Novel supporting data comes from the interaction of ‘only’ -dake and postpositions. Dake can occur outside or inside a postposition: DP-P-dake or DP-dake-P.
Considering their scope with respect to modals, Futagi (2004) show that ‘only’
in -P-dake is scope-rigid, whereas ‘only’ in -dake-P leads to scope ambiguities(16). This difference correlates with their status as interveners (17).
(16) -P-dake is scope-rigid; -dake-P is not:a. Taro-wa Hanako-to-dake hanasa-nak-atta.
Taro-top Hanako-with-only talk-neg-pastlit. ‘Taro didn’t talk only with Hanako.’ Xonly > not, *not > only
b. Taro-wa Hanako-dake-to hanasa-nak-atta.
Taro-top Hanako-only-with talk-neg-pastlit. ‘Taro didn’t talk with only Hanako.’
8

X

only > not, Xnot > only

Again, the scope-rigidity that we confirm and report here is simply with respect
to sentential negation: wh-ka must take wide scope in (12). This conforms to thegeneralization that the scope of indefinite wh-ka may be variable, but cannot belower than its surface position; see Yatsushiro (2009).

(17) -P-dake is an intervener; -dake-P is not:a. ??? Taro-wa Hanako-to-dake nani -otabe-ta-no?
Taro-top Hanako-with-only what-acc eat-past-Q
b.

2.4

X

Taro-wa Hanako-dake-to nani -otabe-ta-no?
Taro-top Hanako-only-with what-acc eat-past-Q‘What did Taro eat (only) with (only) Hanako?’

Summary

The findings discussed in this section are summarized in the table below. Here,“scope-rigid” ( ) indicates that the given quantifier takes obligatory wide scopewith respect to negation. Non-“scope-rigid” (×) quantifiers exhibit scope ambiguities with respect to negation, reflecting the ability of the quantifier to reconstruct at LF. Quantifiers may interrupt the interpretation of lower wh-in-situ,
being “interveners” ( ), or not (×).
(18) Summary of Japanese data:

scope-rigid?
intervener?

scope-rigid?
intervener?

disjunction
universal
also evenNPIkanaishi wh-mo subete -mo -sae
wh-mo(4a) × (4b)(6a) × (6b)(8)(8)(Shimoyama 2011)(5a) × (5b)(7a) × (7b)
(9)
(10)
(1b)
NPI onlyindefinite modified
only-shikawh-ka numerals -P-dake -dake-P(Kataoka 2006)(12) × (14)(16a) × (16b)(11)(13) × (15)(17a) × (17b)

The data generally motivates the generalization in (3), repeated here:(3)

Generalization: Intervention correlates with scope-taking
Scope-rigid quantifiers above an in-situ wh cause intervention. Quantifiers that allow scope ambiguities — i.e., those that allow reconstruction
below wh — do not.

In particular, pairs of synonymous operators such as ka-disjunction vs naishi disjunction, wh-mo vs subete universals, and -P-dake vs -dake-P show that different quantifiers with the same semantics may trigger intervention or not, and thiscorrelates with their scope-rigidity with respect to sentential negation. Such pairs
are problematic for prominent accounts of intervention, including the prosodic
and information-structural theory of Tomioka (2007) and the influential Beck(2006) proposal where interveners are focus-sensitive items. More generally, any
theory that proposes a rigid set of interveners and bases the nature of intervention on the semantics of the interveners, will face similar difficulties explaining
the data we have shown here.

3

Analysis

The findings here support the recent proposal in Kotek (2017) where intervention
is caused by any quantifier taking scope at LF in a region where Rooth-Hamblin
alternatives generated by wh-in-situ are being computed for interpretation by
C, indicated by the squiggly arrow.
(19) Kotek’s intervention schema:* LF: C ... λ ... whQuantifiers are interveners or not depending on whether or not they canreconstruct at LF to avoid the configuration in (19). We begin in section 3.1 withsome background on the compositional semantics of questions. In section 3.2, we
explain the observed correlation between scope-rigidity and intervention-hood inJapanese. Finally, in section 3.3, we present the logical problem encountered by
the configuration in (19), following Kotek (2017). Together, our proposal derives
the pattern of intervention observed above.
3.1

Wh-in-situ as Rooth-Hamblin alternatives

Rooth-Hamblin alternatives are a parallel mode of semantic composition, wherea focus-semantic value is computed compositionally for each syntactic node inparallel to its ordinary semantic value (Hamblin 1973, Rooth 1985, 1992). This
computation has been argued to supply operators such as focus operators andquestion complementizers with a relevant set of alternative denotations or propositions. Consider the LF representation for the wh-in-situ pseudo-English question “Alex likes who?” in (20) below. Focus-semantic values — also referred tosimply as alternatives — are given for each node.
(20) Toy LF: wh-in-situ interpreted via Rooth-Hamblin alternatives:
CP

C



Alex likes Bobby,Alex likes Chris,Alex likes Dana
{Alex}Alexλx.x likes Bobby,
λx.x likes Chris,
λx.x likes Dana{λy.λx.x likes y} {Bobby, Chris, Dana}
likes

who

In (20), the wh-phrase who has a focus-semantic value corresponding to relevant individuals in its domain — here, the individuals Bobby, Chris, and Dana.
We adopt the two-dimensional semantics for wh-words from Beck (2006):(21) Semantics of who:
ordinary semantics: JwhoK undefinedalternatives: JwhoKf = {x : x is human} = {Bobby, Chris, Dana}
The alternatives from (21) compose pointwise at each nonterminal node, resulting in the complement of the interrogative C having a set of propositions as
its focus-semantic value. We refer the reader to Hamblin (1973), Rooth (1985,
1992) and subsequent work on the technical details of Rooth-Hamblin alternative computation.9 The interrogative C then computes the question denotation
using these alternatives in its complement (Shimoyama 2001, Beck and Kim
2006, Kotek 2014), so that these alternative propositions correspond to possible(weak) answers to the question (Hamblin 1973, Karttunen 1977). This yields
the appropriate question semantics without establishing a syntactically local relationship between the wh-phrase and C, as may be hypothesized in a covert
movement theory of wh-in-situ.

3.2

Explaining the correlation

Based on the consideration of scope interactions between different quantificational objects and negation in Japanese, Shibata (2015a,b) argues that all objects
in Japanese (DP arguments in v P) move overtly out of v P. Objects also necessarily move out of NegP, if present, which Shibata argues has a fixed position justabove v P. We further assume the v P-internal subject hypothesis (see e.g. Fukui
1986, Kitagawa 1986, Kuroda 1988), concluding that all (DP) arguments evacuate v P in Japanese. These assumptions are illustrated schematically in (22a).
Quantifiers then vary with respect to their ability to reconstruct: those whichcannot reconstruct have obligatory wide-scope with respect to negation (22b),
whereas those which can reconstruct lead to scope ambiguities with respect tonegation, allowing the LFs in (22b) or (22c).
(22) Scope-rigidity in Japanese (Shibata 2015a,b):
a. All arguments move out of v P:
[CP ... DP ... [v P ... t ... V ] ]b. LF interpretation in surface position leads to wide scope over negation:
LF: [CP ... DP λx ... [NegP [v P ... x ... V ] Neg ] ]DP > Negc. Some (not all) quantifiers reconstruct into v P, allowing narrow scope:
LF: [CP...
[NegP [v P ... DP ... V ] Neg ] ]Neg > DP9The semantic denotations here must be interpreted intensionally. World variables
are not illustrated here to simplify the presentation.

Now consider a surface structure where the DP could lead to an intervention
configuration (23a). (Movement of the wh-phrase to its surface position is notillustrated. The interpreting complementizer is at the left edge of CP for illustration purposes only.) We assume that wh-phrases are interpreted in-situ at LF
by introducing Rooth-Hamblin alternatives which compose pointwise (squiggly
arrow, see previous section) and will be interpreted by the interrogative complementizer; see e.g. Beck (2006) and Kotek (2017) for details.
If the quantifier is scope-rigid, it has no choice but to lead to the LF configuration as in (23b). This is a Kotek intervention configuration (19): the calculationof Rooth-Hamblin alternatives must cross an instance of Predicate Abstraction(λx, in bold), which cannot be defined (see next section). But if a quantifier is
not scope-rigid — i.e. it can reconstruct at LF — the LF in (23c) will also be
available. Alternatively, scrambling the wh-word above the potential intervener
also avoids intervention (23d) without requiring the DP to reconstruct.
(23) Deriving the generalization (3):Potential intervener (DP) above wh:a.
[CP C ... DP ... wh ... [v P ... t ... V ] ]b.

LF interpretation in surface position lead to intervention!
* LF: [CP C ... DP λx ... wh ... [v P ... x ... V ] ]c.
XReconstruction avoids the intervention configuration:
LF: [CP C...
wh ... [v P ... DP ... V ] ]XScrambling wh above also avoids intervention:
LF: [CP C ... wh λy ... DP λx ... y ... [v P ... x ... V ] ]

d.

3.3

The logical problem of abstraction over alternatives

A problem with defining Predicate Abstraction (PA) over non-trivial sets ofalternatives has been acknowledged in the literature on focus and wh semantics
for as long as that literature has existed, but its implications have not been fully
investigated. See e.g. Rooth (1985), Hagstrom (1998), Kratzer and Shimoyama(2002), Shan (2004), Novel and Romero (2009), Ciardelli et al. (2017).
In brief, as demonstrated by e.g. Rooth (1985) and Shan (2004), standard
syncategorematic treatments of a PA rule (as in Heim and Kratzer 1998) are
not well-defined over sets of alternatives. As noted by Shan (2004), previous
work (implicitly) adopts a procedure as in (24) which transposes a function into
a set of alternatives that a PA rule yields into a set of alternative functions.
Shan shows that this leads to a problem of over-generation. The result of thisprocedure (24) includes both (desired) constant functions as in (25) but also
(undesired) non-constant ones as in (26).
(24) A procedure for converting a function into a set of τ -alternatives,to a set of functions
into τ -alternatives:Qhe, hτ, tii 7−→ f he, τ i : ∀xe . f (x) ∈ Q(x)

(25) Constanthe, titi-functions,as desired:
 
(

)
 
x1 7→ Carol saw x1
x1 7→ Barbara saw x1
x1 7→ Alice saw x1
x2 7→ Alice saw x2 , x2 7→ Barbara saw x2 , x2 7→ Carol saw x2 
x3 7→ Carol saw x3
x3 7→ Barbara saw x3
x3 7→ Alice saw x3(26) Non-constanthe, titi-functions,also produced
  by (24):()
x1 7→ Alice saw x1
x1 7→ Alice saw x1
x1 7→ Carol saw x1
x2 7→ Carol saw x2 , x2 7→ Barbara saw x2 , x2 7→ Barb. saw x2 
x3 7→ Barbara saw x3
x3 7→ Carol saw x3
x3 7→ Alice saw x3

This problem can be solved in different ways, including a move to a variablefree and movement-free semantics (Shan 2004), type-lifting the basic elementsin the theory (Novel and Romero 2009, cf Poesio 1996), or re-defining the denotation of propositions (Ciardelli, Roelofsen, and Theiler 2017, Charlow 2017),
all in order to allow assignment functions to be part of the basic type theory.
However, Kotek (2017) argues that this fundamental problem of abstraction
over alternatives should not be solved at all — instead, it is precisely what gives
rise to intervention effects. More precisely, intervention configurations can beundone through movement of wh or of interveners, but not through a repair tothe basic types allowed in the system.

4

Conclusion

In this paper we motivated the generalization that intervention in Japanese correlates with scope-rigidity: scope-rigid quantifiers lead to intervention, whereas
those that can reconstruct do not. This conclusion is explained by and supports
Kotek’s (2017) view that scope-taking into regions of alternative computation
is not possible. As discussed above, Kotek predicts the uninterpretability of LF
configurations of the form in (19), repeated below.
(19) Kotek’s intervention schema:* LF: C ... λ ... wh
Whenever a quantifier is interpreted at LF, λ-abstraction is involved. Since Predicate Abstraction is not well-defined over non-trivial sets of alternatives, theresult is ungrammaticality, diagnosed as an intervention effect.
Together with Shibata’s proposal for the positions of quantificational DPs
in Japanese, we explain the observed correlation between scope-rigidity andintervention-hood. Quantifiers which permit scope ambiguities with respect tonegation are those which can reconstruct into a v P-internal base position, andtherefore are exactly those which can avoid the LF configuration in (19).
Our work here, following Shibata (2015a), shows that intervention-hood is
not simply a property of a quantifier’s logical denotation, but depends moreon its possible positions at LF. Kotek’s theory can be described as a dynamic
theory of intervention-hood: It predicts that manipulations which exceptionallyenable or disable scope reconstruction can change the status of a quantifier as
an intervener or not. In further work, we intend to extend our investigation into
additional quantifiers and configurations in Japanese, to test such predictions.

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