On the plurality of epistemic indefinites

Abstract

This paper addresses a cross-linguistic puzzle about epistemic indefinites: determiners that are grammatical in episodic contexts and that trigger an ignorance inference. While their singular forms converge in yielding obligatory ignorance, their plural counterparts diverge in the presence or absence of obligatory ignorance readings and syntactic marking of plurality. I propose an account in team semantics with two independent parameters: (i) plurality in the domain and (ii) strict vs. lax assignment extension, together with a variation condition. The analysis derives three distinct types of plural EIs and explains the distribution of collective and non-collective readings, as well as the presence or absence of obligatory ignorance, across Italian qualche, Spanish algunos, and German irgendwelche.