Diachronic typology of partitives

The Contribution of Germanic to the Expansion of Partitive‐Related Phenomena in the Prehistoric Circum‐Baltic Area1

“…A more holistic view on the diffusion of partitive‐related phenomena in the Baltic area is offered by Seržant (2015). Without excluding the influence of convergence effects on the partitive case in the eastern Baltic area, Seržant (2015) argues for the impossibility of a mono‐causal explanation for the diffusion of partitive‐related phenomena for the following reasons: (i) Baltic, Slavic and Finnic have all inherited their partitive case markers from their respective proto‐languages; (ii) different properties have different ‘hotbeds’, that is, different source languages from which they have expanded and (iii) these partitive functions are not uncommon from a typological point of view (see also Seržant 2021a, 2021b). Finally, a specific partitive function can be said to be contact‐induced only if it is absent from the ancestor language, and if it can be excluded that the phenomenon in question is not a common typological development (Seržant 2015: 400).…”

“…It has been suggested (Koptjevskaja‐Tamm & Wälchli 2001: 698) that case‐governing takes place because numerals behave as nouns selecting for a genitive complement, a fact that is exemplified in (1) above where the numeral is indeed found in its nominative–accusative form. Diachronically, this construction can emerge in those languages where the quantifier phrases are marked by a partitive (Seržant 2021a: 143). It is evident, in any case, that no partitive reading is accessible here (sentence (1) above does not mean ** five of the apples ).…”

“…(True) partitive expressions are defined, in fact, as a proportional relationship between a subset and a definite superset (cf. Seržant 2021a, 2021b and literature cited therein), for example, three of the books you read . In (8), on the other hand, the supposed superset ‘doves’ is not specific and there is no mention of doves in the remaining part of the section.…”

“…While the interplay between negation and NP‐marking has generally been regarded as uncommon (Koptjevskaja‐Tamm & Wälchli 2001; Miestamo 2014), a recent analysis has found that negation and partitives present some form of interaction in 18 languages (14%) out of a 128 language sample (Seržant 2021a: 148), mostly in languages from Europe (Indo‐European, Uralic, Basque) and Vanuatu (Austronesian, ibid., see also Miestamo 2014).…”

“…While in some languages the GenNeg is less common with individuated nominals (Timberlake 1986: 345 for Russian), here in Gothic the GenNeg seems to co‐occur with repetition in order to stress the absence of the nominal itself (see Bucci 2020: 92–3). While the emphasis in (20) could represent a stylistic device, the emphatic effects associated with the GenNeg are generally explained by the reverse entailments of the indefinites under negation, whereby the negation of an indefinite element is more informative (and therefore, stronger and more emphatic) than the negation of a definite one (Seržant 2021a: 150). In the context of the GenNeg, this property is generally conveyed by adding a downward‐entaling element, such as English ‘any’, to the translation, for example, Gothic ni was im barne (gen.pl) ‘they didn't have any children (whatsoever)’ (Lk.…”