Scope ambiguities with muitas vezes ‘often’ and similar frequency adjunts

Abstract

This paper discusses the interaction between vague frequency adjuncts like muitas vezes ‘often’ and sentential and non-sentential temporal location adjuncts like quando o Pedro está em Paris ‘when Peter is in Paris’ or aos domingos ‘on Sundays’, in constructions like quando está em Paris, o Pedro vai muitas vezes ao Louvre ‘when he is in Paris, Pedro {often goes to the Louvre / goes to the Louvre many times} or aos domingos, o Pedro vai muitas vezes à missa ‘on Sundays, Peter {often goes to mass / goes to mass many times}. The first sentence, whose French counterpart (with souvent) is discussed in the literature, is ambiguous between a wide scope reading of the frequency adjunct over the temporal locating adjunct (‘often, when he is in Paris, Peter goes to the Louvre’) and a narrow scope reading (‘whenever he is in Paris, Peter goes to the Louvre many times’). The same happens, mutatis mutandis, with the second sentence. The interactions between the two types of adjuncts, and whether or not scope ambiguities between them arise, depend on various grammatical factors, which will be discussed in some detail. These include both semantic-pragmatic restrictions, involving the connected propositions and/or the mentioned time intervals, and syntactic restrictions, essentially involving the post-verbal or pre-verbal position of the frequency adjunct. It is also pointed out that the specific subtype of the frequency adjunct, on the one hand, and the specific subtype of the locating adjunct, on the other hand, are key fators to take into account. Thus, for example, frequency adjuncts like muitas vezes ‘often’ or por vezes ‘sometimes’ are often associated with scope ambiguities, whereas adjuncts like poucas vezes ‘seldom’ or adverbial muito ‘a lot’ (as in o Pedro vai muito ao Louvre ‘Pedro goes to the Louvre a lot’) are not; temporal locating adjuncts like quando ‘when’ X, depois dos ‘after the’ N¢ or aos ‘on’ N¢ are often associated with scope ambiguities, whereas adjuncts like depois de todos os ‘after every’ N¢ or todos os ‘every’ N¢ are not. Data from corpora of Portuguese newspaper texts, namely cetempúblico, is provided throughout the paper, for illustration. European Portuguese is the language variety that is centrally considered.