scope the ‘part’ of the sentence (or proposition) to which a given term ‘applies’ under a given interpretation of the sentence. If the sentence ‘Abe does not believe Ben died’ is interpreted as expressing the proposition that Abe believes that it is not the case that Ben died, the scope of ‘not’ is ‘Ben died’; interpreted as ‘It is not the case that Abe believes that Ben died,’ the scope is the rest of the sentence, i.e., ‘Abe believes Ben died’. In the first case we have narrow scope, in the second wide scope. If ‘Every number is not even’ is interpreted with narrow scope, it expresses the false proposition that every number is non-even, which is logically equivalent to the proposition that no number is even. Taken with wide scope it expresses the truth that not every number is even, which is equivalent to the truth that some number is non-even. Under normal interpretations of the sentences, ‘hardened’ has narrow scope in ‘Carl is a hardened recidivist’, whereas ‘alleged’ has wide scope in ‘Dan is an alleged criminal’. Accordingly, ‘Carl is a hardened recidivist’ logically implies ‘Carl is a recidivist’, whereas ‘Dan is an alleged criminal’, being equivalent to ‘Allegedly, Dan is a criminal’, does not imply ‘Dan is a criminal’. Scope considerations are useful in analyzing structural ambiguity and in understanding the difference between the grammatical form of a sentence and the logical form of a proposition it expresses. In a logically perfect language grammatical form mirrors logical form, there is no scope ambiguity, and the scope of a given term is uniquely determined by its context. See also AMBIGUITY; CONVERSE ; CONVERSE , OUTER AND INNER ; RELATION ; STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY. J.Cor.