Coreference in Non-constituent coordination

[Chris Manning]

On 17 May 2002, Ash Asudeh wrote:
 > On Fri, 17 May 2002, Dick Hudson wrote:
 >
 > > ## But surely that's not true of subjects in (so-called) VP coordination?
 > > (1)	People come to London in the summer and avoid it in the winter.
 > > (2)	Only one student got a distinction and failed - all the rest just passed.
 > > (3)	One boy kissed Mary and hugged Jane - all the other girls got kisses
 > > and hugs from several boys.
 >
 > For what it's worth, I absolutely cannot get (2) and (3) to mean what Dick
 > wants them to mean.

I would agree that it seems hard out of context to get the desired
reading of (2).  But, at any rate, there's an extensive literature
arguing this back and forth.  I think most people accept that this
reading is felicitous for some sentences with this structure.  See for
instance Section 7.6 of Carpenter's Type Logical Semantics.

Chris.