LingLunch : Abdelkader Fassi Fehri

Jeudi 22 Novembre 2018, 12:00 to 13:00
Organisation: 
Pascal Amsili (LLF)
Lieu: 

LLF – Bât. ODG – 5e étage – Salle du conseil (533)

Abdelkader Fassi Fehri (Université Mohammed V & LSM Rabat)
A syntactic-based analysis of universal quantifier subtypes and variation

Languages have various lexical and syntactic ways to express distinct senses of universal quantification. They differ not only in the number of vocabulary items available to them, but also in terms of features and categories which build the various quantifier types. Thus, the most productive Arabic universal kull can be shown to convey, through its distinct uses, the three universal quantifier senses or subtypes roughly equivalent to those of the English all, every, and each. A similar variation in the universal vocabulary and quantifier range can be observed in various languages, including in particular Greek (see also Bantu, French, etc.). These universal quantifiers contrast with baʕḍ ‘some’, qaliil ‘few’, ʔakṯar ‘most’, etc. which express existential or proportional quantification. English all is ‘collective’, and every and each ‘distributive’. Each is distinct from every in expressing a form of strong or rigid distributivity, whereas every is soft or flexible (Tunstall 1998, Beghelli and Stowell 1997). I will provide a differential syntactic-based analysis of these universal subtypes in Arabic in particular, (a) making use of distinct features and categories, and (b) assuming in particular the existence of separate DP and QP projections.