An Experimental Investigation into Scope Rigidity in Japanese*

This paper investigates the question of whether or not scope rigidity is a feature of the grammar of Japanese. Using a Truth Value Judgment Task experiment, we tested the judgments of 256 native speakers of Japanese on sentences containing both a subject and object quantifier. We conclude that scope rigidity does indeed have a role to play in the grammar of Japanese, but that other factors, such as the choice of quantifier can interact with scope rigidity, allowing for more readings than just th