Quantification across languages

Jeudi 05 Juillet 2018, 16:00 to 18:00
Invité: 
Edward Keenan (UCLA, invité Labex EFL)
Organisation: 
Heather Burnett (LLF)
Lieu: 

ODG – Salle 311

Edward Keenan (UCLA)
Quantification across languages

Quantifiers play an important role in studies of natural language semantics, but have only recently been subject to extensive cross language sampling. The most thorough and recent (30 plus languages, 2000 pages) is by myself and Denis Paperno, Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Languages.  Matthewson (2008) is also an excellent earlier source, and Bach et al 1995. We contrast nominal vs adverbial quantifiers and within each consider (generalized) existential, universal, proportional and definite quantifiers, offering 15 new generalizations re the distribution and interpretation of quantifiers cross linguistically, e.g. all Ls have an all and an only, not all have a some distinct from the number one.

  • Paperno, Denis and E.L. Keenan. 2017. Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language. Springer. Questionnaire and summary
  • Matthewson, Lisa (ed). 2008. Quantification: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Emerald, North Holland linguistic Series.
  • Bach, E., E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer, B.Partee. 1995. Quantification in Natural Languages, Kluwer.