Distributive numerals and distance distributivity in Tlingit (and beyond)

Abstract

and KeywordsThis paper develops a formal semantic and syntactic analysis of distributive numerals in Tlingit, a highly endangered language of Alaska, British Columbia and the Yukon. Such numerals enforce a 'distributive reading' of the sentence, and thus are one instance of the broader phenomenon of 'distance distributivity' (Zimmermann 2002). As in many other languages, a Tlingit sentence containing a distributive numeral can describe two distinct kinds of 'distributive scenarios': (i) a scenario where the distribution is over some plural entity (cf. 'My sons caught three fish each'), and (ii) one where the distribution is over some plural event (cf. 'My sons caught three fish each time') (Gil 1982, Choe 1987, Zimmermann 2002, Oh 2005. Despite this apparent ambiguity, I put forth a univocal semantics for Tlingit distributive numerals, one whereby they consistently invoke quantification over events. Under this semantics, the ability for distributive numerals to describe both kinds of scenarios in (i) and (ii) is not due to an ambiguity, but instead to the sentences having relatively weak truth-conditions. In contrast to prior analyses of distributive numerals and distance distributivity, the proposed semantics does not actually make use of distributive operators, but nevertheless retains a rather conservative picture of the syntax-semantics interface. The analysis can also account for certain locality effects noted for distance distributives in Korean and German (Zimmermann 2002, Oh 2005), as well as an intriguing puzzle regarding distributive numerals and pluractionality in Kaqchikel (Henderson 2011). Finally, I show how the analysis can be extended to the well-known case of English 'binominal each'.

Dancing monkeys in Serbian and Korean – exhaustivity requirements on distributive share markers

“…A pervasive line of analysis takes DistShare markers to be universal distributive quantifiers, just like so-called distributive key (DistKey) markers, but that can distribute over implicit spatiotemporal arguments unlike DistKey markers (Choe 1987;Gil 1995;Zimmermann 2002b;Balusu 2006 a.o.). Other researchers, however, take DistShare markers to be pluractional markers, simply signaling event plurality without universal quantification (Matthewson 2000;Muller and Negrão 2012;Cable 2014;Knežević 2015;Pasquereau 2018 a.o. ).…”

Degree Modification and Pluractionality in Spanish

“…Pluractionality is usually formalized as in (2c) (Cable 2014), where it is stated that a pluractional expression (PA) is true iff there is a predicate P and an event e such that e is a plural event and every atomic member e' of e satisfies P, and the cardinality of e exceeds a contextually given number n.…”

Pluractionality and distributive numerals

“…each the students hugged one-one dog "Each of the students hugged a dog." (Kaqchikel, Henderson, 2014) For distributive numerals, this licensing puzzle has been well-documented, including for Hungarian (Farkas, 1997), Telugu (Balusu, 2005), Korean (Oh, 2006), Tlingit (Cable, 2014), Kaqchikel (Henderson, 2014), and American Sign Language (Kuhn, 2017). For pluractional marking on verbs, the property has been less well documented, but has been reported for both participant key and temporal key distribution in French Sign Language (Kuhn & Aristodemo, 2017).…”