earticle

영어

The Japanese indeterminate numeral quantifier (wh-Cl) can directly combine with a quantificational particle ka or mo, forming, e.g., nan-nin-ka "ewhat-Clperson-ka"f or nan-nin-mo "ewhat-Clperson-mo"f. This paper focuses on the empirical evidence that the former gives rise to a "esome"f reading while the latter a "emany"freading, and discusses, from semantic and pragmatic
perspectives, how these readings are formally derived. Semantically, we assume, in accord with Hamblin (1973), that the indeterminate numeral quantifier (NQ) is a set of alternatives. Following Jayaseelan (2001), ka is treated as a disjunction operator that takes a set of alternatives and produces a disjunction of it. Adopting Shimoyama"fs (2006) direct restrictor view of indeterminate phrase quantification, we derive the "esome"f reading of the indeterminate NQ-ka. In contrast, the "emany"f reading of an indeterminate NQ-mo is attributed to the pragmatics of mo, which triggers a presupposition like English even (Karttunen and Peters 1979).