This paper contributes to the semantic typology of indefinites by presenting experimental evidence on the scopal behavior of the Spanish indefinites un and algún, and by discussing the theoretical implications of these data.
Two off-line experiments investigate exceptional scope in relative clauses and in conditionals. These studies show that while in relative clauses exceptional scope is possible for both indefinites (although it is harder for
algún), in conditionals, exceptional scope is blocked for algún and available (but difficult) for un.The difference between the two types of islands is challenging for most theories of scope, which predict any indefinite to have the same scopal properties across islands.
We propose an account cast within Kratzer and Shimoyama’s 2002 alternative semantics, in which indefinites denote sets of alternatives that expand until they meet an appropriate operator. The “scope” of an indefinite extends up to the position occupied by the operator. To account for the contrast between the two islands, we claim that conditionals introduce an operator that blocks alternative expansion (Alonso-Ovalle, 2006) but relative clauses allow alternatives to project further up. The difference between the two indefinites is attributed to the fact that un can be a singleton indefinite, in the sense of Schwarzschild (2002) but algún is a domain widener (Alonso-Ovalle and Menéndez-Benito, 2003).
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