19.446, Qs: Morphologically-Transparent DE Quantifiers

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LINGUIST List: Vol-19-446. Thu Feb 07 2008. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 19.446, Qs: Morphologically-Transparent DE Quantifiers

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1)
Date: 07-Feb-2008
From: Luisa Martí < luisa.marti at hum.uit.no >
Subject: Morphologically-Transparent DE Quantifiers

 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:08:01
From: Luisa Martí [luisa.marti at hum.uit.no]
Subject: Morphologically-Transparent DE Quantifiers
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Hi! 
I am working on the internal composition of quantifiers such as English "at
most," "few," etc. (downward-entailing (DE) quantifiers), as exemplified in
(1):

(1) John bought at most two/few/fewer than two/no books at the book fair.

What is the shape of these quantifiers in other languages? Are they
morphologically complex? Or are they like English "few," where there
doesn't seem to be any internal structure to the word? It would be very
useful for me if you could translate the above sentences into your native
language and send them to me at luisa.marti at hum.uit.no. Please include a
gloss for the whole sentence, as well as a gloss for the different pieces
of the DE quantifiers if indeed in your language such quantifiers are
morphologically transparent. I'll post a summary with the results. 

Thanks!
Luisa 

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics
                     Syntax





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