[Lingtyp] Weak scalar quantifiers (some)

[Mira Ariel]

Hi,

I’m looking for counterparts of the Eng some in its role as a weak scalar quantifier (accented), as in some of my best friends are linguists (where the understanding is that not all my best friends are linguists). Actually, I doubt such expressions were ever "born" monosemous, so I’m looking for their sources and/or other functions they serve and/or other functions they are related to. I believe Eng scalar some is related to an old quantifier, but of course, it is also related to the determiner.

I’ve identified 4 families of expressions (some requiring a partitive construction, some restricted to count or to non count nouns). Languages are not restricted to any one of the following:


  1.  Nominals explicitly denoting part of a whole, e.g., Hebrew xelek ‘part (of)’. (vs. ‘all’)
  2.
a.   Quantifiers denoting a smallish quantity, e.g, Hebrew kcat ‘a little’. (vs. ‘much’)
              *
                b. Quantifiers denoting ‘a number of’, e.g., Hebrew kama, French quelques(uns) (vs. ‘many’)
  3.  Adjectives denoting an unidentified subset, ‘certain’, e.g., Fr certains (de) (vs. 'others’).
  4.  Existential construction ‘exist’, e.g, Chinese Yǒude shíhòu ‘sometimes’, lit. ‘there are times’ (vs. 'others').

I would appreciate examples for other languages (with references, preferably).
Are there scalar quantifiers associated with other meanings than 1-4 above?

Thanks very much,
Mira Ariel






Mira Ariel

Email: mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il<mailto:mariel at tauex.tau.ac.il>

Website: https://www.tau.ac.il/~mariel/

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