Article published in:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 8:1 (2017) ► pp. 107–128

Scope and partitivity of plural indefinite noun phrases in Spanish

| The University of Texas at Austin
It has been argued that European Spanish plural indefinite noun phrases including algunos convey a partitive effect because the restrictor alg- provides additional properties. The reason that algunos implicates a “non-all-things” effect is because it refers only to an indeterminate part of the whole. The scope of bare plurals and unos, in contrast, does not exhibit this characteristic. This article argues that, contrarily to this claim, the scope of bare plurals and unos also induces partitivity because occurrences of these words include unarticulated constituents. Therefore, European Spanish indefinite noun phrases pragmatically presuppose the relevant part of what the speaker intends to refer, which is also shared by the audience since it is part of the common ground both occupy. Hence, bare plurals and unos are always contextually restricted, since a covert (optional) variable present in the logical form cannot capture this contextual restriction.
Keywords: partitivity, scope, implicature, presupposition, unarticulated constituents, indefinites, algunos , European Spanish
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Assumptions in Martí’s compositional strategy for the semantic context-sensitivity of indefinites
  • 2.Martí’s argument for partitivity
  • 3.Unarticulated constituents reconsidered
  • 4.Partitive implicature and the consequences of rejecting unarticulated constituents
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 25 April 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.8.1.06col
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Scope and partitivity of plural indefinite noun phrases in Spanish
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Colomina-Almiñana, Juan J.
2018. Pragmatic presupposition and unarticulated constituents. Lingua 206 ► pp. 112 ff. Crossref logo

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