Partitives, pseudopartitives and the preposition<i>apo</i>in Greek

Αλεξιαδου, Αρτεμισ; Stavrou, Melita

doi:10.1515/ling-2020-0082

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The structure we adopt is mono-projectional in the sense that a single nominal is projected (see Stavrou 2003, Alexiadou & Stavrou 2020 for arguments in favor of a mono-projectional analysis of Greek absolute juxtaposed measurement.) We assume that semi-lexical nouns like kilo 'kilo' acquire case via agreement with the substance NP.…”

Section: Juxtaposed Nominal Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

Spathas¹,

Αλεξιαδου

2023

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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A large array of nominal measurement structures can give rise to proportional readings, i.e., readings which specify the proportional relation of two measurements. Two key questions in the analysis of such readings is (a) whether nominal measurement structures are (or can be) in some sense inherently proportional or whether proportionality comes to be part of the meaning of nominal measurement via some external factor, like the manipulation of a contextual standard, the choice of a proportional measure function, or the presence of a relative modifier, and (b) to what extent it is possible to attribute proportionality to a single source across different nominal measurement structures. This paper addresses these questions by investigating the proportional readings of three nominal measurement structures in Greek (comparatives, juxtaposed measurement structures, and partitive measurement structures) as they arise in the presence of precise proportions specified by percentages like n tis ekato ‘n percent’. We argue that even in the presence of such relative modifiers, it is necessary to assume a second source of proportionality. We provide novel evidence for the necessity of proportional measure functions for both comparatives and juxtaposed measurement structures. Partitives are the only case at hand that seems to necessitate inherent proportionality. Moreover, a unified analysis of precise proportions is shown to be possible as long as we move away from a standard analysis of differential comparatives.

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Section: Juxtaposed Nominal Measurementmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

Spathas¹,

Αλεξιαδου

2023

Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics

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“…39 Beyond this ambiguity of pseudopartitives, two main types of syntactic analysis are advanced in the literature: they are the so-called monoprojectional and the predicational analysis. The former, first proposed by Jackendoff (1977), Selkirk (1977), L€ obel (1989) (see also Stavrou 2003, Csirmaz & Stavrou 2017, Alexiadou & Stavrou 2020, focuses on the existence of lexical categories (water) dominated by semi-lexical categories (bottle), which are in turn dominated by a cardinal, an indefinite determiner or a quantifier (a). It advocates that the structure of pseudopartitives consists of one NP/DP projection, that contains a lexical N. The labels attributed to the relevant categories differ among the authors, but what is crucial is that the quantity-designating element heads either an NP or a functional projection within the extended nominal projection.…”

Section: De In Pseudopartitivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, de is phonologically null in Asturian when the preceding word ends with a vowel, as illustrated in (65) for pseudopartitives, as opposed to the required phonological exponent de in partitives (66). Recall that Alexiadou and Stavrou (2020) have convincingly shown that there is a tight relation between N1 and N2 in languages like Greek and German, in which pseudopartitives are expressed by means of juxtaposition. In these languages, N1 and N2 are always of the same type (that is, N1 is semi-lexical, and N2 is lexical), and the verb can select either one.…”

Section: De In Pseudopartitivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several authors (Riemsdijk 1998, Stavrou 2003, Borer 2005 have pointed out the special properties of N1. Alexiadou and Stavrou (2020), following Stavrou (2003) and Csirmaz and Stavrou (2017), propose that pseudopartitives most characteristically consist of a semi-lexical N that requires the presence of a lexical N2, which it measures or quantizes. The semi-lexical head can consist of measure nouns, classifier-like nouns, massifiers, group and cardinal nouns as in (59) (Alexiadou & Stavrou 2020:724, (23)).…”

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The Status ofDein Romance Indefinites, Partitives and Pseudopartitives*

Espinal

Cyrino

2021

Studia Linguistica

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This paper focuses on the status of de in Romance indefinites, partitives and pseudopartitives. It argues that there is neither a ‘partitive article’ nor a ‘partitive preposition’ in syntax. De in Romance indefinites is the overt Spell‐Out of an abstract operator de that cancels the definiteness of articles and is responsible for indefiniteness. De in Romance partitives is the overt Spell‐Out of a relator head that takes a definite DP as complement and a QP in the specifier position. Finally, pseudopartitivity is shown to have crosslinguistic parallels with indefinites, and it is derived by postulating a mono‐projectional analysis in which a semilexical N selects for a de‐phrase, in exactly the same way that quantifiers and cardinals select for indefinite de‐phrases.

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“… [15] See Jackendoff (1977), Selkirk (1977) and posterior works (Stavrou 2003, Alexiadou & Stavrou 2020, and others) for the similarities between quantifier expressions ( many children ) and other expressions among which there are quantifier-like nouns ( a number of students ), cardinal nouns ( dozens of T-shirts ), measure nouns ( a pile of books ) and partitive nouns ( a slice of bread ). …”

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A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

Espinal¹,

Cyrino²

2021

J. Ling.

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In this paper we present an original approach to analyze the compositionality of indefinite expressions in Romance by investigating the relevance of their syntactic distribution in relation to their meaning. This approach has the advantage of allowing us to explore the question of how syntactic structure can determine the meaning of different forms of indefiniteness. To that end, we postulate a common derivation for bare plurals, bare mass and de phrases, whereby an abstract operator de is adjoined to definite determiners and shifts entities into property-type expressions. Quantificational specificity is proposed to be derived from a syntactic structure in which weak quantifiers select for indefinite de-phrases, no matter whether de is overt at Spell-Out or not; these quantifiers turn properties into generalized quantifiers. The anti-specificity meaning of some indefinites is derived by adjoining in the syntactic structure an abstract operator alg that encodes the speaker’s epistemic state of ignorance to a quantifier encoded for specificity, and it turns a generalized quantifier into a modified generalized quantifier. The paper also brings some general predictions on how indefiniteness is expressed in Romance, as it provides extensive support from five Romance languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian and Spanish.

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Partitives, pseudopartitives and the prepositionapoin Greek

Cited by 3 publications

References 29 publications

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

On the source of proportionality in nominal measurement: evidence from Greek

The Status ofDein Romance Indefinites, Partitives and Pseudopartitives*

A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

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