Scope

A phrase's scope is the part of the sentence that that phrase's semantics apply to.

For example, the scope of a determiner that introduces a logical quantifier is the smallest clause it's in. This means that the interpretation of the quantification happens in that smallest clause, and not at the level of the entire sentence:

Shoe jí ꝡä kuq súq sía raı da.
means: “I allow you to say nothing.”
not: ❌ “There is nothing that I allow you to say.”

Here, the scope of sía is the clause “ꝡä kuq súq sía raı”.

Topic and scope

If we want to say the other thing, we have to lift sía out of the clause by clefting it to the main clause:

Sía raı nä shoe jí ꝡä kuq súq ráı da.
There is nothing that I allow you to say.

See Topic and focus in the refgram.

"Scoping over"

For two phrases X and Y, if the scope of X fully includes the scope of Y, then we say “X scopes over Y”.

This amounts to a claim about the order to apply their respective semantics in.

Scope creep

One common beginner mistake is to rephrase sentences involving using a serial verb, under the impression that the meaning stays the same:

Shoe jí ꝡä kuq súq sía raı da.
“I allow you to say nothing.”
→ 🤔 Shoe kuq jí súq sía raı da.
“I allow-to-say you nothing(?)”

However, the ꝡ clause that was limiting the scope of sía is now gone, which means that sía scopes over the whole sentence. The meaning of the sentence is thereby changed to “There is nothing that I allow you to say”.