Ever free relatives crosslinguistically

  • 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.

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Metadaten
Author:Radek Šimík
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-558518
DOI:https://doi.org/10.21248/zaspil.61.2018.502
ISSN:1435-9588
ISSN:0947-7055
Parent Title (English):Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, Vol. 2 / eds. Uli Sauerland and Stephanie Solt. Berlin, Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft: ZAS papers in linguistics ; Nr. 61
Publisher:Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
Place of publication:Berlin
Document Type:Part of a Book
Language:English
Year of Completion:2020
Year of first Publication:2018
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2020/09/16
Tag:(un)conditionals; crosslinguistic semantics; definite descriptions; ever free relatives; modal inferences
Page Number:18
First Page:375
Last Page:392
HeBIS-PPN:470274263
Dewey Decimal Classification:4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache
4 Sprache / 41 Linguistik / 410 Linguistik
Sammlungen:Linguistik
Linguistik-Klassifikation:Linguistik-Klassifikation: Semantik / Semantics
Zeitschriften / Jahresberichte:ZAS papers in linguistics : ZASPiL / ZASPiL 61 = Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, Vol. 2
:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-559361
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0