A mereotopological account of Ukrainian singulatives
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Singulatives are derived unit nouns, i.e., expressions designating a singular object individuated from a plurality perceived as a homogeneous collection of entities. Singulative morphology is attested cross-linguistically, e.g., in Brittonic Celtic, Semitic, Cushitic, Nilo-Saharan as well as East Slavic (Wierzbicka 1988, Corbett 2000, Dimmendaal 2000, Acquaviva 2015). Recent research on the structural and semantic properties of the suffix -in- in Russian reveal the theoretical relevance of Slavic data (Kagan & Nurmio forthcoming, Kagan et al. forthcoming). Inspired by that work, in this paper we will examine Ukrainian word formations such as pisok `sand' -> pišč-yna `a grain of sand' and propose a meretopological analysis on which the singulative morpheme -yna is an atomizer of sorts (Scontras 2014). Specifically, it selects for an aggregate predicate, i.e., a property of entities prototypically conceptualized as clusters, and turns it into a predicate of discrete singular integrated wholes. |
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