Against a generalized quantifier analysis of certain quantity expressions in Ch’ol
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v1i0.5402Abstract
This paper discusses a quantity word alternation in Ch’ol, a Mayan language of southern Mexico. Drawing on fieldwork and additional texts, I show that numerals, pejtyel ‘all,’ and oñ ‘many/much’ may appear with additional possessive morphology. I present evidence against a generalized quantifier analysis of these expressions and provide an analysis where the possessed quantity expressions are adjuncts co-indexed with a null pronoun. I also consider the alternation between oñ ‘many/much’ and its possessed form, meaning ‘most’. While the morphosyntactic distribution is similar, there are certain semantic reasons to not treat the ‘many’/‘most’ alternation in the same way as ‘all’ and the numerals. I suggest that the form corresponding to ‘most’ has arisen via analogy with the other forms. I conclude with some observations on other quantity words in the language and cross-linguistic implications in the study of quantificational phrases.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Articles appearing in SALT are published under an author agreement with the Linguistic Society of America and are made available to readers under a Creative Commons Attribution License.