Imagine you’re reading a sentence like this: “Every student read a book.” Now, there are two ways to think about what that means:
- Way 1 (Surface Scope): Each student read their own book. For example, Anna read one book, Ben read another, and Charlie read yet another.
- Way 2 (Inverse Scope): All the students read the same book, like everyone reading Harry Potter.
The human mind processes language in remarkably intricate ways, especially when a sentence holds the potential for multiple interpretations. Much of this hinges on how we mentally structure the relationship between key linguistic elements, known as quantifiers. One interpretation flows naturally from the order in which the words appear—this is the Surface Scope (SS). The other requires a mental flip, uncovering a deeper layer of meaning, known as the Inverse Scope (IS).
In English, people tend to prefer the Surface Scope interpretation—it feels more natural. However, in languages like Bengali, where word order is more flexible, speakers rely heavily on the word order to guide their interpretation. To express a different meaning, they often rearrange the words in the sentence instead of relying on context to infer it.
But there’s another layer to this: not all quantifiers behave the same way. Some tend to dominate the interpretation of a sentence, while others are more neutral. This variation adds an additional level of complexity when we try to understand how people interpret meaning across different languages.
Our research investigates how these two factors—word order and the specific characteristics of quantifiers—interact. By comparing speakers of English and Bengali, we found that while word order plays an important role, the underlying tendencies of how certain quantifiers influence meaning remain remarkably consistent across both languages. This reveals a fascinating balance between the unique properties of individual languages and the universal principles that guide human understanding of language.