zero-marked true partitives

[Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm]

Hi everyone,
in my paper on the typology of partitives and pseudo-partitives that Mickey
quoted in his first message in this series ("A piece of the cake" and "a cup of
tea": Partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic
Languages. In Dahl. Ö. & M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.), v. 2, 523-568, The
circum-Baltic languages: Their typology and contacts)  there are plenty of
examples of languages with zero-marked pseudo-partitives and partitives
involving overt markers. The latter normally "come" from ablative and / or
possessive markers. What David writes goes in fact against one of my
generalizations that languages with zero-marked pseudo-partitives will ALWAYS
have another construction for true partitives. So my question is whether
languages of the Riau Indonesian kind are particularly frequent. That is, does
anyone else have examples of languages where 'I want a slice of that cake' would
involve juxtaposition of 'slice' and 'that cake'?
   In the same paper there are further examples of various processes
accompanying grammaticalization of pseudo-partitives and true partitives whereby
the quantifiers lose their nominal proprties, as well as of ambiguities between
'a coffee cup' and 'a cup of coffee'. The latter often seem to be lexically
restricted.
Best,
Masha Koptjevskaja Tamm

 What
David writes about Riau Indonesian is partricu
On 2007-07-23, at 03:29, David Gil wrote:
> In Riau Indonesian (and probably other colloquial varieties of 
> Malay/Indonesian), both "pseudo-partitives" and "true partitives" are 
> zero marked:
>
> (1) Aku mau satu kilogram teh
>      1SG want one kilogram teh
>
> Sentence (1) can mean either 'I want a kilo of tea' or, in the right 
> context, 'I want a kilo of that tea'.  (The latter interpretation can be 
> reinforced by the addition of various deictic markers, but such markers 
> are not obligatory.)  It's not clear to me that the distinction between 
> "pseudo-" and "true" partitives is one that is relevant to the grammmar 
> of Indonesian; that is to say, sentence (1) is probably best analyzed as 
> vague rather than ambiguous between the two intended interpretations.
>
> In this respect, (1) seems to differ from (2) below, where the two 
> possible interpretations are clearly distinguishable:
>
> (2) Aku mau satu gelas teh
>      1SG want one glass tea
>      'I want a glass of tea'
>      'I want a glass for tea (ie. a tea-glass)'
>
> Sentence (2) probably should be analyzed as ambiguous rather than vague: 
> eg. when occurring in naturalistic contexts, speakers probably always 
> intend one of the two interpetations to the exclusion of the other.
>
>
> -- 
> David Gil
>
> Department of Linguistics
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
>
> Telephone: 49-341-3550321 
> Fax: 49-341-3550119
> Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
> Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/