Scalar marking without scalar meaning

Nonscalar, nonexhaustive even-marked NPIs in Greek and Korean

Bibliographic Data

ID2959567
AuthorsAnastasia Giannakidou (0000-0003-2266-9410), Yoon (0000-0002-2804-2646), Suwon Yoon
Year2016
Volume92
Issue3
Pages522-556
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/lan.2016.0047
OpenAlexW2508585990
LanguageEN
Citations received42
References cited22

This article discusses in detail two cases of even -marked negative polarity items (NPIs) in Greek and Korean that are not scalar or exhaustive. This prima facie paradoxical finding suggests that EVEN-marking is not always an indicator of scalarity—and, at least in the case of the Korean and Greek NPIs discussed, even is grammaticalized as a nonscalar NPI marker. We propose that the nonscalar NPIs are antispecific indefinites with referential vagueness , which is a form of ignorance best captured as nonexhaustive variation in the potential values of the NPIs (Giannakidou & Quer 2013). We also show that the difference in Greek and Korean between scalar and nonscalar NPIs is reflected in prosody: scalar NPIs are ‘emphatic’, and nonscalar NPIs are ‘nonemphatic’; we therefore conclude that prosodic prominence, not even , signals scalar structure. The fact that not all NPIs are scalar or exhaustive falsifies theories claiming that exhaustivity is the source of all NPIs (Chierchia 2006, 2013)

Linguistics · Scalar (mathematics) · Vagueness · Linguistic research and analysis · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research

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