The Status of<i>De</i>in Romance Indefinites, Partitives and Pseudopartitives*

Espinal, M. Teresa; Cyrino, Sônia

doi:10.1111/stul.12184

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 52 publications

(90 reference statements)

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“…We also predict that in the complement position of pseudopartitives only an indefinite DE-phrase is allowed, but not quantificational structures. Both predictions appear to be borne out (Espinal & Cyrino 2021).…”

Section: Conclusion and Further Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 86%

A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

Espinal¹,

Cyrino²

2021

J. Ling.

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In this paper we present an original approach to analyze the compositionality of indefinite expressions in Romance by investigating the relevance of their syntactic distribution in relation to their meaning. This approach has the advantage of allowing us to explore the question of how syntactic structure can determine the meaning of different forms of indefiniteness. To that end, we postulate a common derivation for bare plurals, bare mass and de phrases, whereby an abstract operator de is adjoined to definite determiners and shifts entities into property-type expressions. Quantificational specificity is proposed to be derived from a syntactic structure in which weak quantifiers select for indefinite de-phrases, no matter whether de is overt at Spell-Out or not; these quantifiers turn properties into generalized quantifiers. The anti-specificity meaning of some indefinites is derived by adjoining in the syntactic structure an abstract operator alg that encodes the speaker’s epistemic state of ignorance to a quantifier encoded for specificity, and it turns a generalized quantifier into a modified generalized quantifier. The paper also brings some general predictions on how indefiniteness is expressed in Romance, as it provides extensive support from five Romance languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, French, Italian and Spanish.

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Section: Conclusion and Further Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 86%

A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

Espinal¹,

Cyrino²

2021

J. Ling.

Self Cite

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What’s hidden below definiteness and genitive: on indefinite partitive articles in Romance

Pinzin

2024

Linguistics

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In French, Italian, and other Romance languages indefinite nominal phrases can be introduced by what appears to be the conflation of a genitive preposition and a definite article, the so-called “indefinite partitive articles” (e.g., Fr. Je cuisine de la soupe depuis deux jours. ‘I’ve been cooking soup for two days’). This is rather unexpected, since these nominal phrases are neither definite nor in a syntactic position in which we expect to find a genitive preposition. This led part of the literature to consider them as built by lexical items synchronically distinct from the genitive preposition/definite article but homophonous with them. This contribution shows how a constituent-based approach to the lexicon-syntax interface as nanosyntax, paired with a specific take on the sequence of syntactic functions, can capture their apparently conflicting distribution without stipulating multiple homophonous lexical items. The key factor in this proposal is a revised analysis of the Romance lexical item (LI) for (i) definite articles – linked to a constituent containing not only features of definiteness but also lower indefinite features and higher nominative/accusative case features – and (ii) the genitive preposition DE – linked to a constituent containing not only genitive features but also lower nominative/accusative features. Holding these LIs crosslinguistically stable, the variation attested in this domain is modeled as depending on the amount of functional structure lexicalized by the nominal root in the different languages.

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On the property-denoting clitic ne and the determiner de/di: a comparative analysis of Catalan and Italian

Espinal,

Giusti

2024

Linguistics

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The clitic pronoun ne and the functional element de introducing nominal constituents have many nominal and prepositional functions across Romance languages. In this article, we focus on the nominal functions, singling out three different bundles of semantic features that characterize both ne and de. They can denote properties of individual entities, properties of kinds, or predicate properties. The article shows that Catalan ne and de display the three types of denotation, while Italian ne and de only display the first one. This article further supports the hypothesis that the indefinite determiner de can be overt or silent, thereby unifying de-phrases (and the Italian partitive article) with bare nouns. The analysis of de as an indefinite determiner is then extended to adjectival de, which is claimed to mark concord features on adjectives in both Catalan and Italian.

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The Status ofDein Romance Indefinites, Partitives and Pseudopartitives*

Cited by 4 publications

References 52 publications

A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

A syntactically-driven approach to indefiniteness, specificity and anti-specificity in Romance

What’s hidden below definiteness and genitive: on indefinite partitive articles in Romance

On the property-denoting clitic ne and the determiner de/di: a comparative analysis of Catalan and Italian

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