The aim of the paper is to give a semantic description of the independent or bare partitive genitive (IPG) in Lithuanian in rather neutral, functional terms. The IPG is a multi-faceted category that bears on the domains of quantification and (in)definiteness. On its quantificational reading, the IPG encodes an implicit quantifier, arbitrary in its value. I have used the notion of (un)boundedness (re-)introduced in Paul Kiparsky’s (1998) seminal paper on the partitive case in Finnish. NP-internally, the IPG has two main readings: unbounded and bounded reading. The first reading provides the concept of the participant rather than ‘zooming in’ on particular instantiations. It is extremely weak referentially, probably the weakest option available in Lithuanian. This reading is restricted to those verbs in Lithuanian that allow their arguments to be kind-referring NPs (e.g., the subject of the existential to be, or object of to know). On the bounded reading, in turn, the IPG encodes an undetermined but delimited set, the reading is existential and resembles indefinite plurals. The individuals introduced by this reading are stored in the discourse model and may be picked up by anaphoric pronouns in the following discourse. They never constitute primary or foregrounded information of the message, though. Furthermore, I have claimed that the incremental-theme verbs and verbs of transfer in East Lithuanian interact with the IPG-marked object with respect to their aspectual properties. Here only the bounded reading of the IPG is available. This explains the ban on the occurrence of IPG in imperfective contexts in Lithuanian (such as progressive, which has no grammatical marking in Lithuanian, generic and iterated atelics) with incremental-theme verbs, because the imperfective interpretation induces an inherently unbounded event which is not compatible with the bounded reading of the IPG. Both bounded and unbounded values are assumed to be originally two different readings of the same implicit quantifier that have, however, acquired different distributions in the course of time.

The paper claims that the independent partitive case in Finnic languages and the independent partitive genitive case in Baltic and East Slavic (henceforth: ip(g)) show considerable correlations that cannot be accounted for but by language contact. Given that both the ip(g) in Baltic and East Slavic as well as the ip(g) in Finnic are inherited from the respective proto-languages, the paper also offers a methodological discussion of how inherited categories may also be shown to be subject to language contact. A typologically not infrequent category must be individualized on the basis of a list of properties. Thus, 13 semantic and 5 morphosyntactic properties have been discussed. While the study reveals that in general the ip(g) is or was subject to intensive language contact, there is no common hotbed for all properties analysed and different properties have different hotbeds and are distinct with respect to their geographical distribution and entrenchment. North Russian and Finnic show the greatest degree of correspondence as, e.g., the aspectuality related functions of the ip(g) or the morphological distinction between the possession (sensu lato) and the partitive-related functions are concerned. Here, Finnic is the donor language. However, other properties such as the semantic and syntactic merger of the acc and ip(g) marking must have spread from Russian to Finnic and, to some extent, Baltic. Similarly, the genitive/partitive-under-negation probably developed first in Baltic and Slavic and spread then into Finnic, since preconditions for this rule are already found in the ancient Indo-European languages. Finnic, however, preserves this rule best.

The present paper aims to investigate the main semantic-functional and discursive properties of partitives on the bases of the bare (independent) partitive genitive in Ancient Greek. Contrary to previous views that the bare partitive genitive (b-PG) primarily encodes the part-of-relation I claim that this meaning of the b-PG has been lost in Ancient Greek. Instead, I claim that the b-PG encodes undetermined instantiations of a set descriptive and restrictive in nature and compatible with kind-or subkindreferring NPs/DPs. It allows the speaker to make no commitment as to the quantity, referentiality and semantic role of these instantiation(s); this/these instantiation(s) have inherently narrow scope (e.g. with negation). These semantic properties determine the discursive function of the b-PG. I claim that the b-PG detracts the focus of attention from the actual participant and links it to the descriptive set or kind/subkind this participant belongs to; the actual participant is extremely backgrounded and its reference is never stored in the discourse model. The b-PG allows the speaker to zoom out from the actual participant and view it schematically in terms of one of its hypercategories (subkind, kind, characterizing/descriptive set). This function of the b-PG explains its frequent occurrence with the verbs of consumption or desire. It explains, furthermore, its use in the predicative position and in headings. As to the diachronic perspective, it is claimed that the foregroundedness of the respective hypercategory and extreme backgroundedness of the subset indicate that the b-PG develops semantically towards pseudo-partitivity.

A surprising property of the Ancient Greek bare partitive genitive NP in the subject position is that it behaves morphosyntactically in many ways as a nominative-marked NP: (i) while being in the logical subject position, it triggers semantically driven verbal agreement and, (ii), it may be coordinated with nominatives. This is striking, since obliques typically do not have access to agreement in ancient Indo-European languages including Ancient Greek. To account for this discrepancy, I assume a covert head of the partitive genitive that is filled by pro with an arbitrary reference (pro arb ) by default; else, this position can be filled by any quantifier or determiner. It is this pro arb that gets Case and triggers verbal agreement. The presence of the pro arb in Ancient Greek explains also why the "independent" partitive genitive is not restricted to structural positions only (as are partitives, e. g., in Finnic languages) but can occur at any position including non-argumental adverbials.

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