On word order and non-conservative percentage quantification in Slavic and German
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22130505 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Berit Gehrke (0000-0002-6315-9532, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Marcin Wągiel (0000-0002-6282-2435, Masaryk University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-04 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Glossa a journal of general linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2397-1835 • E-ISSN: 2397-1835 |
| Publisher | Open Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.16995/glossa.5803 |
| OpenAlex | W4310874875 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 23 |
This paper discusses conservative and non-conservative construals of percentage quantifiers (%Qs), e.g., 50% of the women vs. 50% women, in Slavic and German. Based on data from corpora and cross-linguistic questionnaires, we make the novel empirical generalization that word order plays a crucial role in distinguishing between these two readings, irrespective of whether there is an additional difference between definite vs. bare nominals (German, Bulgarian, Macedonian) or not (the other Slavic languages). Specifically, non-conservative %Qs appear low in the structure, inside the VP, whereas conservative %Qs either appear in their canonical position, depending on their syntactic role as subject or object (German, Bulgarian), or high/VP-externally (the other Slavic languages). We propose that non-conservative %Qs are always interpreted low and combine with the predicate on a par with semantically incorporated nominals and, with intransitves, existential constructions. We argue against previous accounts that ascribe a crucial role to focus for the non-conservative reading to arise, in taking focus to merely be derivative from the requirement of non-conservative %Qs to appear low, paired with a general rule for sentential stress placement
Bulgarian · German · Linguistics · Slavic languages · Word formation · Word order · Computer Science · linguistics and terminology studies · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
A semantic characterization of natural language determiners
Generalized quantifiers and natural language
Clitic doubling in Balkan languages
Oxford Handbook of Information Structure
The Syntax of Russian
Partitives
Definiteness, Uniqueness, and Maximality in Languages With and Without Articles
‘Only’ as a Determiner and as a Generalized Quantifier
Measure constructions with relative measures
On focus marking and predication. Evidence from Polish with some notes on Hausa
Existential Sentences Crosslinguistically
Presupposition Triggering from Alternatives
Possession and pertinence
A theory of focus interpretation
Word order in German
From Have to Have-verbs
Expression of information structure in West Slavic
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |