The paper presents a constraint based semantic formalism for HPSG. The syntax-semantics interface directly implements syntactic conditions on quantifier scoping and distributivity. 1 The construction of semantic representations is guided" by general principles governing the interaction between syntax and semantics. Each of these principles acts as a constraint to narrow down the set of possible interpretations of a sentence. Meanings of ambiguous sentences are represented by single partial representations (so-called U(nderspecified) D(iscourse) R(epresentation) S(tructure)s) to which further constraints can be added monotonically to gain more information about the content of a sentence. .
