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Linguistic Variation: Online-First Articles

Dimensions of partitivity in Icelandic (and beyond)

| University of Stuttgart

This article addresses a peculiar partitive construction in Icelandic – peculiar, in that it involves (case, number, gender) agreement between a quantificational element and the inner nominal, rather than dependency marking (by case or preposition) on the inner nominal. It is shown that this construction shares properties of both canonical partitives (definiteness marking) and pseudo-partitives (monophrasality), but actually qualifies as neither; it assumes an intermediate position. Based on this insight, we develop the idea that partitive constructions may be not simply a collection of “structures that fall under the umbrella term of “partitives”” (Falco and Zamparelli 2019: 1), but rather constitute a scale of partitivity. It is likewise conceded, however, that a proper map of partitivity may be more complex than a simple one dimensional hierarchy.

Keywords: Icelandic, proper partitive, agreement partitive, pseudo-partitive, definiteness marking, dependency marking, scale of partitivity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1On proper partitives and pseudo-partitives
    • 1.2The issue: Agreement vs. dependency marking
  • 2.Agreement partitives
  • 3.Agreement vs. dependency marking
    • 3.1(Lack of) proper partitivity
    • 3.2Relative clauses
    • 3.3Contextual anchoring
  • 4.A scale of partitivity
  • 5.Summary
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 May 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.23034.pfa
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