The paper proposes a
novel solution to the problem of exceptional scope (ES) of (in)definites,
exemplified by the widest and intermediate scope readings of the sentence Every student of mine read every poem that a famous
Romanian poet wrote. We propose that there are two sources for ES
readings: (i) discourse anaphora to
particular sets of entities and quantificational dependencies between these
entities that restrict the domain of quantification of the two universal
determiners and the indefinite article; (ii) non-local introduction of the discourse
referent that restricts the quantificational domain of the indefinite article.
Our account, formulated within a compositional dynamic system couched in
classical type logic, relies on two independently motivated assumptions: (a) the discourse context stores not only (sets
of) individuals, but also quantificational dependencies between them, and (b) quantifier domains are always contextually
restricted. Under this analysis, (in)definites are unambiguous and there is no
need for special choice-functional variables to derive exceptional scope
readings.