Quantification in Persian

Toosarvandani, Maziar; Nasser, Hayedeh

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-44330-0_13

“…Before starting the theoretical discussion, however, I will first give a brief overview of the scopal properties of Farsi indefinites beyond their ability to give rise to wide pseudo-scope de dicto readings (See Toosarvandani & Nasser (2017) for a survey of quantification in Farsi, and Jasbi (2016) for a discussion of other indefinite expressions in Farsi).…”

Section: Early Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have already seen that Farsi indefinites can take scope above negation. It has also been shown that singular indefinites in Farsi can take narrow scope with respect to sentential negation (Modarresi 2014, Toosarvandani & Nasser 2017. 12 The example in ( 25 We did not have a guest during Norouz holidays.…”

Section: "Scope" Of Farsi Indefinitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indefinites in negated intensional contexts: An argument for world-Skolemized choice functions

Mirazzi

2024

S&P

0

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This paper introduces a novel scope paradox. Providing data from Farsi, I show that indefinites in the surface syntactic scope of negated intensional operators yield a reading in which the indefinite appears to take wider scope over the negation, and narrow scope with respect to the intensional operator. Genuine generalized quantifiers, in contrast, do not yield such readings. The uniqueness of indefinites in giving rise to such wide pseudo-scope de dicto readings, which are also found within a simple clause, provides evidence that indefinites differ from generalized quantifiers, not only in their ability to take exceptional scope across clause boundaries, but also in their local scopal properties. I argue that the existence of such wide pseudo-scope de dicto readings not only poses a problem for the generalized quantifier view of indefinites, but also for any approach that takes indefinites to scope via syntactic movement. In-situ accounts of indefinites, on the other hand, can straightforwardly account for the new data, without over-generating wide scope de dicto readings (a.k.a. the "fourth readings") which are widely believed to be impossible (Von Fintel & Heim 2011, Keshet & Schwarz 2019, Elliott 2023. I argue that an account in terms of world-Skolemized choice functions is more successful in accounting for the full pattern of the wide pseudo-scope de dicto reading in Farsi, as well as cross-linguistic variation in the availability of such readings.

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“…Before starting the theoretical discussion, however, I will first give a brief overview of the scopal properties of Farsi indefinites beyond their ability to give rise to wide pseudo-scope de dicto readings (See Toosarvandani & Nasser (2017) for a survey of quantification in Farsi, and Jasbi (2016) for a discussion of other indefinite expressions in Farsi).…”

Section: Early Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indefinites in negated intensional contexts: An argument for world-Skolemized choice functions

Mirazzi

2024

S&P

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper introduces a novel scope paradox. Providing data from Farsi, I show that indefinites in the surface syntactic scope of negated intensional operators yield a reading in which the indefinite appears to take wider scope over the negation, and narrow scope with respect to the intensional operator. Genuine generalized quantifiers, in contrast, do not yield such readings. The uniqueness of indefinites in giving rise to such wide pseudo-scope de dicto readings, which are also found within a simple clause, provides evidence that indefinites differ from generalized quantifiers, not only in their ability to take exceptional scope across clause boundaries, but also in their local scopal properties. I argue that the existence of such wide pseudo-scope de dicto readings not only poses a problem for the generalized quantifier view of indefinites, but also for any approach that takes indefinites to scope via syntactic movement. In-situ accounts of indefinites, on the other hand, can straightforwardly account for the new data, without over-generating wide scope de dicto readings (a.k.a. the "fourth readings") which are widely believed to be impossible (Von Fintel & Heim 2011, Keshet & Schwarz 2019, Elliott 2023. I argue that an account in terms of world-Skolemized choice functions is more successful in accounting for the full pattern of the wide pseudo-scope de dicto reading in Farsi, as well as cross-linguistic variation in the availability of such readings.

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“…Bare nominals can be interpreted as definites as (1) shows, but not all bare nominals are definite. 2 They can be generic or numberless indefinites (Toosarvandani & Nasser 2015). Many factors influence definiteness in Persian including the uniqueness marker -e, intonation, tense, and aspect.…”

Section: Tehrani Persianmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…pool "The child threw the ball in the pool." Singular indefinites Tehrani Persian has two ways of marking singular indefinite NPs: (1) the indefinite determiner ye and (2) what I call the ANTIDEFINITE clitic -i (Moin 1958;Ghomeshi 2003;Toosarvandani & Nasser 2015). These two markers make the three indefinite constructions shown in Table 1.…”

Section: Tehrani Persianmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three Types of Indefinites in Persian: Simple, Complex, and Antidefinite

Jasbi

¹

2016

SALT

4

0

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This paper investigates three indefinite constructions in Persian: simple (ye NP), complex (ye NP-i), and antidefinite (NP-i). It shows that simple indefinites with the determiner ye carry an at-issue existence implication (| NP |≥1), similar to their English counterpart with the indefinite determiner a(n). Complex indefinites with both ye and -i introduce an antisingleton implication (| NP |>1), similar to Spanish indefinites with algún. Antidefinites with only the clitic -i are a novel category which trigger a projective non-uniqueness implication (| NP | =1). The paper argues that the antisingleton implication of complex indefinites (ye NP-i) is derived compositionally from the existence implication of the determiner ye and the non-uniqueness implication of the clitic -i. This account resolves a puzzle regarding the role of the clitic -i in disambiguating restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Finally, the paper discusses the pragmatic effects of complex indefinites, such as ignorance, indifference, free choice, and domain widening implications.

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Quantification in Persian

Cited by 15 publications

References 8 publications

Indefinites in negated intensional contexts: An argument for world-Skolemized choice functions

Indefinites in negated intensional contexts: An argument for world-Skolemized choice functions

Indefinites in negated intensional contexts: An argument for world-Skolemized choice functions

Three Types of Indefinites in Persian: Simple, Complex, and Antidefinite

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