Indeterminate pronouns in Old English: a compositional semantic analysis
Abstract Indeterminate pronouns in Old English (expressions like hwa ‘who/what’ and hwelc ‘which’) permit several interpretations in addition to their use as interrogative pronouns, for example readings as universal or existential quantifiers. They combine with morphological prefixes (ge- ‘and, also’ and a- ‘always, ever’), which change the range of possible interpretations. Old English indeterminate pronouns are shown to contribute a crosslinguistically hitherto unattested pattern of available interpretations. In particular, bare indeterminate pronouns have a universal interpretation and ge-i... Mehr ...
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Dokumenttyp: | Artikel |
Reihe/Periodikum: | The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Anmerkungen: | © The Author(s) 2020 |
ISSN: | 1383-4924 |
Weitere Identifikatoren: | doi: 10.1007/s10828-020-09116-y |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/olc-benelux-2121631038 |
URL: | NULL NULL |
Datenquelle: | Online Contents Benelux; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | Verbundzentrale des GBV (VZG) |
Link(s) : | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-020-09116-y
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-020-09116-y |
Abstract Indeterminate pronouns in Old English (expressions like hwa ‘who/what’ and hwelc ‘which’) permit several interpretations in addition to their use as interrogative pronouns, for example readings as universal or existential quantifiers. They combine with morphological prefixes (ge- ‘and, also’ and a- ‘always, ever’), which change the range of possible interpretations. Old English indeterminate pronouns are shown to contribute a crosslinguistically hitherto unattested pattern of available interpretations. In particular, bare indeterminate pronouns have a universal interpretation and ge-indeterminate pronouns can be both universal and existential. This paper offers an alternative semantic analysis in the spirit of Hamblin (Found Lang 10:41–53, 1973) and Shimoyama (Nat Lang Semant 14:139–173, 2006). A compositional semantics is given for the pronouns and the prefixes, which derives the available readings. The paper ends with a proposal for compositional semantic change relating Old English indeterminate pronouns to their modern descendants.