Ever free relatives crosslinguistically

Abstract

Based on a sample of seven languages, I show that the so-called modal inferences
in ever free relatives (ignorance and indifference) are not universally available. The primary
reading of ever free relatives crosslinguistically turns out to be a “non-modal” one, which is
available to all languages under investigation. The implication is that if there is a modal inference
triggered by the use of the ever-morpheme in FRs, the inference is likely to have a source
external to the ever free relative (Lauer, 2009; Condoravdi, 2015; Hirsch, 2016). In line with
this conclusion, I propose to generalize Hirsch’s (2016) analysis of ignorance ever free relatives,
suggesting that all ever free relatives, no matter how they are ultimately interpreted, are
instances of (un)conditionals + donkey-anaphoric definite descriptions.
Keywords: ever free relatives, (un)conditionals, definite descriptions,modal inferences, crosslinguistic
semantics