Hintikka's Thesis Revisited
Nina Gierasimczuk, Jakub Szymanik

Abstract:
We discuss the thesis formulated by Hintikka (1973) that certain
natural language sentences require non-linear quantification to
express  their meaning. Our basic assumption is that a criterion for
adequacy of meaning representation is compatibility with sentence
truth-conditions. This can be established by observing linguistic
behavior of language users. We investigate sentences with combinations
of quantifiers similar to Hintikka's examples and propose a novel
alternative reading expressible by linear formulae. This
interpretation is based on logical and philosophical observations.
Moreover, we report on experiments showing that people tend to
interpret sentences similar to Hintikka's sentence in a way consistent
with our interpretation.