Quantification in Eskimo: A Challenge for Compositional Semantics

• Main Author: Maria Bittner
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Kluwer Academic Publishers 1995
• Subjects: eskimo*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.4309; http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mbittner/bittner_95_qnt.pdf

syntactic classes. In English, paradigm examples of one class are adverbs of quantification (AQ) eg. always, mostly, never; while the other class is represented by quantificational determiners like every, most, no. Following Partee et al. (1987), I refer to these two classes as A-quantifiers and D-quantifiers, respectively. Syntactically, an A-quantifier forms a constituent with some projection of V (1a), whereas a D-quantifier is, or forms a constituent with, a projection of N (1b). (1) a. A quadratic equation [ VP usually [ VP has two solutions]]. b. [ DP Most [ NP quadratic equations]] have two solutions. Quantifiers of either type can be restricted by bare or indefinite NP's, as in (1). In addition to that, an A-quantifier can be restricted by an if- or when-clause (2), and a D-quantifier, by a relative clause (3a) or a dislocated PP (3b). (2) [ CP When a boy gets a balloon], he almost always breaks it within ten minutes. (3) a. Almost every boy [ CP who gets a balloon] breaks it within ten minutes.