On some problems of (in)definiteness within flexible semantics

This paper studies the ramifications of the flexible semantics in Winter (2001a) [Flexibility Principles in Boolean Semantics: Coordination, Plurality and Scope in Natural Language. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts] for the analysis of some of the facts in “the core set” for this special issue. Within this framework, it argues (i) for a general “anti-economy” principle in the application of choice functions to (non-)specificity markers; (ii) for DP structure as the main trigger of different scope potentials; (iii) for lexical structure as characterizing the common/proper noun distinction and the special class of bare “president-like” nominals; and (iv) for Danon’s (2001) [Linguistics 39 (2001) 1071] notion of purely-syntactic “definiteness spreading” in Hebrew construct states.