Non-conservative construals with percentage quantifiers in Slavic
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Journal of Slavic Linguistics 31(FASL 30) |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | Plný text výsledku na webových stránkách časopisu |
| Keywords | conservativity; proportional quantifier; percentage quantifier; word order; information structure; non-conservativity |
| Description | The paper investigates non-conservative, as opposed to conservative, interpretations of sentences with percentage quantifiers corresponding to ‘fifty percent’ in Slavic. Based on the results of a questionnaire study in Slavic languages with (Bulgarian and Macedonian) and without definiteness marking (BCMS, Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak, and Slovenian), we make the novel observation that word order is a main and sometimes the only means to distinguish between conservative and non-conservative readings. We argue that for the non-conservative reading to arise the percentage quantifier has to appear in a low position, VP-internally, in order to be part of the predicate and to take the VP’s extension as its first argument. |
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