Q/Clf in Thai

[Peter Jenks]

Hello! I'm writing an honors thesis on Quantifier Float in Thai within LFG,
and have run into an interesting problem and would truly appreciate any
input you might have.

The problem, in short, is that the Thai quantifier float structure has two
separate constituents that seem to be mapped to the same f-structure. The
first of these is the head noun plus modifiers, determiner, etc. The second
is a quantifier or cardinal number, which must occur with a classifier that
refers back to the head noun. This "floated" quantifier occurs obligatorily
to the right of VP complements, i.e. any nuclear objects. For example:

(1)  a.  dek   ni      (thuk/sii) khon pai rong rian
         child DX:near (all/four) CLF  go  school ('khon' must refer to humans)
         "(all) these (four) children are going to school"

       b. dek    ni   pai    rong rian  (thuk/sii) khon
          "these children are (all/*four) going to school"

Below is a more thorough description of the issue, and options I have been
considering to solve the problem (some good, some not) if you are
interested. Also, if there's any work on Classifiers in LFG you know of, I
would be very interrested in getting a hold of that.
-Peter

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Right now, one of the underlying problems in my analysis of this problem is
that there has been close to zero work with classifiers in LFG, so I'm sort
of on my own in areas like their lexical specifications, esp. since Thai
classifiers have a relatively wide range of uses (e.g. with adjectives for
definite readings). Right now I'm leaning towards the classifiers and head
nouns matching features similar to the way languages with verbal agreement
would between subj. and verb.

With that in mind, it wouldn't be hard to map the floated quantifier +
classifier (FQ) in the f-structure. The main problem is that Thai has
virtually no inflection and is thus extremely endocentric, but I don't think
it would be possible to annotate both the DP and the later ClfP as having
Subj f-structures, since that would violate uniqueness.

Right now, I'm leaning towards making the FQ the right branching spec of VP,
but a distinct problem is that the ClfP, assuming it's a Spec, seems to be
projected in both the Spec of IP and the Spec of VP, as the following
sentences show:

(2)  a.  dek      pai    rong rian  maj  daj   thuk khon
         child    go    school      NEG  can   all  CLF
         "The children all can't go to school"

       b. dek      pai     rong rian thuk khon  maj daj
                                     all  CLF   NEG can
          "The children can't all go to school"

The big problem here is that the DP is already in the Spec of IP, so it
seems impossible to also have a right branching Spec from the same IP. This
problem, I'm sure, will be easier to solve than the other once I think
of/get more data.

So my current options are having the FQ be:
A) another subject projected somewhere to the right of the VP in the spec of
IP or VP (unlikely)
B) a non-argument discourse function, kind of like TOP or FOC, again in the
Spec of IP or VP (more likely, but it ignores the fact that it should be
contributing directly to the f-structure of the subject)  or
C) making the floated quantifier a right-branching adjunct to I' or V.' This
possibility has the interesting option of making the floated quantifier
endocentrically unannotated and saying that the classifier is lexocentric
and mapped back to the NP (this is pretty much an ad hoc solution.)

If you've made it this far, I'd just like to thank you again for taking some
interest in my problem, and also thank you ahead of time for any insights
any of you might have.

-Peter