Non-Existential Indefinites and Semantic Incorporation of PP Complements

This paper studies some newly observed phenomena with indefinite descriptions when they appear as complements of prepositional phrases (PPs). We show that in many such cases the indefinite does not receive the traditional existential interpretation, and its quantificational force is sensitive to the identity of the preposition. Such cases of quantificational variability are explained by elaborating previous theories of semantic incorporation. In our proposal, predicative indefinites are direct arguments of the spatial component in the semantics of the PP. The semantics of spatial prepositions is directly responsible for the quantificational interpretation of predicative indefinites that appear as PP complements. Using earlier studies of locative prepositions, especially (Zwarts and Winter 2000), we analyze the effects that monotonicity and (anti-)additivity of prepositions have on the quantificational interpretation of predicative indefinites in their complement. These semantic observations are supported by standard tests from entailments and acceptability with negative polarity items.