Pluractional Quantifiers: The occasional-construction in English and German

Abstract

I investigate a syntactic construction which raises an interesting question for compositionality: An adjective seems to be interpreted outside its containing DP, taking scope over the entire sentence. With Larson (1999), I assume that the adjective incorporates into the DP-determiner, forming a complex quantifier. I present independent evidence in favour of such an analysis. Furthermore, I argue that Larson' s semantic account of D-A-incorporation is in need of revision. I propose an alternative, more empirically adequate analysis which treats D+ A composites as Lasersohnian (1995) pluractional quantifiers.