A new kind of epistemic indefinite

Autor/innen

  • Virginia Dawson

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.60.2018.471

Abstract

Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India) has two series of epistemic indefinites: one whose
epistemic effects arise via an anti-singleton constraint similar to Spanish alg´un (Alonso-Ovalle
and Men´endez-Benito, 2010), and another, wide-scope indefinite whose epistemic effects must
be derived differently. I propose that for these latter indefinites, ignorance arises not through
domain constraints, but as a result of their choice functional nature through competition with
other indefinites. Tiwa’s wide scope indefinites then constitute a new kind of epistemic indefinite,
showing that ignorance implicatures for indefinites can arise through different sorts of
competition.
Keywords: epistemic indefinites, wide scope indefinites, choice functions, implicature, Tiwa.

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Veröffentlicht

2018

Zitationsvorschlag

Dawson, Virginia. 2018. „A New Kind of Epistemic Indefinite“. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 60 (Januar):349-66. https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.60.2018.471.