Scope Inversion under the Rise-Fall Contour in German

TLDR

Scope inversion under a rise‑fall accent contour in German is a well‑known but poorly understood phenomenon, defined phonologically rather than semantically, and may reflect a general property of free‑word‑order languages. The authors explain this inversion by deriving it from general principles of scope assignment and focus marking, where focus on preverbal constituents yields ambiguous interpretations and is favored by a derivational‑economy framework that prefers shorter derivations.

Abstract

A well-known but ill-explained fact about German is scope inversion under a rise-fall accent contour. The scope inversion in this reading can be derived from general principles of scope assignment and focus marking in German. In particular, focus is assigned to preverbal constituents, leading to syntactic configurations that result in ambiguous interpretations. This explanation must be couched in a framework of derivational economy that favors shorter derivations. The relevant comparison class is defined with respect to phonological form, not, as has been suggested for English, with respect to identity of semantic interpretation ; this may be a general property of “free” word order languages.