This paper analyzes the emergence of scalar additive meanings. We show that in Basque the same particle ere can obtain both the “simple additive” reading (akin to English too) and the “scalar additive” reading (akin to English even) but we argue that we do not have to distinguish two types of ere. We provide evidence, by means of a production and a perception experiment, that the reading is disambiguated by means of prosody (the placement of nuclear stress), which is a correlate of focus. We argue that the scalarity effect is generated by the combination of two presuppositions (a focus-induced one and a lexical one) and the assertion of the sentence.

This paper proposes a novel analysis for the Basque definite determiner [-a] where it is argued, in opposition to other scholars (cf. Artiagoitia, 2002, 2006 where [-a] is argued to be a number marker when it gets the existential narrow scope interpretation), that the Basque definite determiner (despite its various interpretations) is just that, a definite determiner. Moreover, based on the behaviour of this element, this paper provides extra evidence in favour of the Neocarlsonian approach (cf. Chierchia, 1998b; Dayal, 2004) where the existential interpretation of bare nouns (BN) is shown to be dependent on the kind-level reading. This evidence should also be taken as proof against the so-called Ambiguity analysis (cf.

Although contemporary linguistic studies routinely use unacceptable sentences to determine the boundary of what falls outside the scope of grammar, investigations far more rarely take into consideration the possible interpretations of such sentences, perhaps because these interpretations are commonly prejudged as irrelevant or unreliable across speakers. In this paper we provide the results of two experiments in which participants had to make parallel acceptability and interpretation judgments of sentences presenting various types of negative dependencies in Basque and in two varieties of Spanish (Castilian Spanish and Basque Country Spanish). Our results show that acceptable sentences are uniformly assigned a single negation reading in the two languages. However, while unacceptable sentences consistently convey single negation in Basque, they are interpreted at chance in both varieties of Spanish. These results confirm that judgment data that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable negative utterances can inform us not only about an adult’s grammar of his/her particular language but also about interesting cross-linguistic differences. We conclude that the acceptability and interpretation of (un)grammatical negative sentences can serve linguistic theory construction by helping to disentangle basic assumptions about the nature of various negative dependencies.

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Recent work has described allocutive marking in finite embedded contexts in Tamil and Magahi, where allocutivity interacts with indexical shift. It has been proposed that allocutive marking reflects agreement with a silent addressee-related DP present in all finite clauses even when no indexical shift applies. A prediction of this approach is the possibility of varieties with embedded allocutive marking but no indexical shift. This article argues that some southern Basque dialects instantiate this possibility. In addition, novel evidence is presented suggesting that the syntax of allocutivity is related to the syntax of direct-address expressions in these dialects.