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The semantics of plural indefinite noun phrases in Spanish and Portuguese

Marti, Luisa (2008) The semantics of plural indefinite noun phrases in Spanish and Portuguese. Natural Language Semantics, 16 (1). pp. 1-37. ISSN 0925-854X. (doi:10.1007/s11050-007-9023-x) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:30212)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11050-007-9023-x

Abstract

In this paper I provide a decompositional analysis of three kinds of plural indefinites in two related languages, European Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. The three indefinites studied are bare plurals, the unos (Spanish)/uns (Portuguese) type, and the algunos (Spanish)/alguns (Portuguese) type. The paper concentrates on four properties: semantic plurality, positive polarity, partitivity, and event distribution. The logic underlying the analysis is that of compositionality, applied at the subword level: as items become bigger in form (with the addition of morphemes), they also acquire more semantic properties. The paper proposes the “indefinite hierarchy", which establishes a set of components for languages to build their indefinites with, in a particular order.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1007/s11050-007-9023-x
Uncontrolled keywords: Plural indefinites - Indefinite hierarchy - Semantic plurality - Positive polarity - Partitivity - Event distribution
Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Steph Ham
Date Deposited: 20 Aug 2012 10:16 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:08 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/30212 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Marti, Luisa.

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