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Record W4407980959 · doi:10.3765/r1c82645

Pseudo-scoping out of relative clauses: an ‘individual concept’ approach

2025· article· en· W4407980959 on OpenAlexafffund
Jonathan Palucci

Bibliographic record

VenueProceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldArts and Humanities
TopicSyntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
Canadian institutionsMcGill University
FundersSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
KeywordsComputer sciencePsychology

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Sentences where a definite DP is modified by a relative clause containing a universal quantifier (relative clause DPs), like the supervisor that each volunteer reported to, license readings which carry separate presuppositions of uniqueness and existence for each volunteer—henceforth, ‘varying definite readings’ (VDRs). Barker 2022 argues that these readings involve the universal DP scoping out of the relative clause and above the definite and proposes to analyze them using a non-local scope shifting mechanism, like quantifier raising (QR). In this paper, we argue that this is a case of pseudo-scope. Instead, we argue for a functional interpretation of the DP and propose that VDRs result from the definite DP denoting an ⟨e, e⟩ function, from volunteers to supervisors. As support for this claim, we draw a parallel between relative clause DPs and ‘bare DPs’ (the same definite DP but without the relative clause/embedded universal). We observe that both kinds of DPs license VDRs and thus should be analyzed in the same way—yet bare DPs have no universal to undergo QR. Further support for a pseudo-scope analysis comes from one undergeneration and one overgeneration challenge for the QR approach.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.005
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.007
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.006
Threshold uncertainty score0.025

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0050.007
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.002
Bibliometrics0.0030.002
Science and technology studies0.0020.014
Scholarly communication0.0040.017
Open science0.0030.005
Research integrity0.0020.004
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0060.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.031
GPT teacher head0.265
Teacher spread0.234 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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