Focus without variables: A multi-modal analysis

It is an issue of ongoing controversy whether the information present at surface structure is sufficient for semantic interpretation or not. In the generative tradition the dominant position is that it is inevitable to enrich this structure with traces, indices etc. — devices that are to be interpreted like variables in logic — and that surface structure has to undergo certain syntactic transformations to get a suitable input for compositional interpretation.1 On the other hand, semanticists working in the tradition of Richard Montague (cf. Montague (1974)) usually assume that surface structure contains all information necessary for semantic interpretation. The Categorial tradition has strengthened this constraint by insisting that meaning composition can be done without essential reference to variable names as a kind of information that is not present at surface structure.2 Under the perspective of Occam’s razor a surface compositional and variable free approach to semantics is certainly preferable, but the ultimate decision has to be made by comparing the empirical coverage of such theories with its competitors.