LISSIM 6

June 1-15, 2012@ Kangra

Selected Essays

Soumya Paloor
PhD, EFLU, Hyderabad

The compositional analysis of quantifiers is my topic of interest. Malayalam quantifiers are taken as an example to analyze the internal structure of the quantifiers and how different quantifiers vary in their distribution and interpretations.  Co-ordination markers play a major role in the composition of Malayalam quantifiers. There are mainly four types of quantifiers in Malayalam such as question word incorporated quantifiers, negative polarity items, scalar quantifiers which have a conjunction morpheme in their composition and scalar quantifiers which do not have any conjunction marker. Let us look at each of these types in detail. The question word incorporated quantifiers have been analyzed by Jayaseelan (2001) as infinite conjunction/disjunction as shown below, depending on the type of co-ordination marker used.

1.      Malayalam aarkk-um padik’k’-aam

            Malayalam whom-CONJ learn-MODAL

            ‘Anyone can learn Malayalam’.

2.      Enik’k’ aaR-ookathezhuthi

            To me who-DISJ letter-write

            Somebody wrote a letter to me.

The first example shows the composition of a universal quantifier which contains a conjunction morpheme and the second one that of an existential quantifier which has a disjunction morpheme. The co-ordination markers here act as conjunction and disjunction operators respectively and interpret the question word variable as infinite conjunction/disjunction respectively.

The negative polarity items too have a conjunction marker in their composition. NPIs are formed with the combination of a conjunction marker with question words like aaRə, other numeral ‘one’ or words which refer to very small quantity.

3.      aaRə-um          weLLam          kaLaňň-illa.

            Who-CONJ     water               threw-Neg

            ‘No one threw water.’

4.      ňaan   innə     onnə-um          kazhicc-illa.

            I           today   one-CONJ       eat-Neg

            ‘I didn’t eat anything today.’

The third type of quantifiers is scalar quantifiers which contain a conjunction marker in their composition. It includes ellaa, mik’k’a, pala, cila, kure and walla. Among them, ellaa, mik’k’a, pala and walla always occur in combination with the conjunction morpheme –um. It is a part of their semantic interpretation.

5.      *ellaa kuTTikaL /ella kuTTikaL-um    class-il wannu

            *All     kids/kids-CONJ                      class-in            came

            ‘All children came to class.’

6.      mik’k’a kuTTikaL-um            class-il wannu

            most    kids-CONJ      class-LOC       came

            ‘most kids came to class’

7.      pala    kuTTikaL-um     class-il           wannu

            many   kids-CONJ      class-LOC       came

            ‘many kids came to class.’

All the quantifiers we have seen so far had the conjunction morpheme in their composition. In the question word incorporated quantifiers it is the conjunction operator which interpreted the question word as the infinite conjunction, or the universal quantifier. But we are yet to find out what it does in the scalar quantifiers. Does it function as a conjunction operator? Or does it give emphasis to the DP? Is it just an additive particle? Is it just a universal operator?

Now let us look at the following quantifiers which do not have the conjunction morpheme in their composition.

8.      Cila     pustakaŋŋaL    labhyam-alla

            Some   books               available-NEG

            ‘someooks are not available.’

9.      Kure   pustakaŋŋaL    labhyam-alla

            Many   books               available

            ‘many books are not available.’

Now compare this with a sentence with pala.

10.  Pala pustakaŋŋaL-um           labhyam-alla

            Many   books-CONJ   available-NEG

            ‘many books are not available’

11.  *pala  pustakaŋŋaL    labhyam-alla

            Many   books               available-NEG

            *’many books are not available.’

The deletion of the conjunction marker renders the sentence ungrammatical. The conjunction marker is a part of the semantic interpretation of these quantifiers as is clear from the examples. We have to find out the function of the conjunction marker in these quantifiers. There is yet another quantifier which has a conjunction marker in its composition, namely walla(any).

12.  Walla   kuTTikaL-um   war-um

            Some   kids-CONJ      come-FUT

            Some kids will come.

13.  *walla kuTTikaL-um wannu

            Some   kids-CONJ      came

            ‘some kids came.’

Walla cannot occur in an episodic affirmative sentence. It is licensed by modals and polarity questions. Walla appears in contexts similar to Q-eŋgil-um. Let us look at a few sentences to see if they occur in the same environments.  It appears in the polarity sensitive (PS) any’s domain, i.e, in polarity questions but it cannot appear with negation as shown below, as it cannot be licensed by NPIs. 

14.  a) wall-at-um kazhich(u)-oo?             b) Ent-eŋgil-um kazhich(u)-oo?

           Any-AGR-CONJ eat-DISJ                    what-if-CONJ eat-DISJ

                                   ‘Had anything?’                     

15.  a)* walla-t-um kazhich-illa.               b) *Ent-eŋgil-um kazhich-illa

Any-AGR-CONJ eat-NEG                           what-if-CONJ eat-NEG

                             ‘Didn’t eat anything’                                                 

It can also appear in the FC any’s domain with imperatives and in modal contexts.

16.  a)Walla pustakav-um wayikkuu                     b) et-eŋgil-um pustakamwayikkuu

     Any books-CONJ read                                       which-if-CONJ book          read

‘Read any books’                                                    ‘Read any/whichever  book’

17.  a)Walla kuTTikaLumwannek’k’um                b) et-eŋgil-um kuTTikaL wannek’k’um

Any/some children-CONJ come-MODAL         which-if-CONJ  children come-MODAL

‘Some students might come’                               ‘Any children may come’

Walla is not licensed by negation as is shown in the examples. As walla and Q-eŋgil-um shares the same distributional domains, we can assume that walla is also an existential quantifier like Q-eŋgil-um.This is interesting in the sense that a single morpheme seem to refer to a combination of morphemes. It is suggestive of a possible complex internal structure of these quantifiers. We have to find out whether similar structures can be derived for other quantifiers analyzed in this paper as well. The tentative frame work of my research is thus Nanosyntax.

I hope to get some insights into the issues discussed here from the lectures of LISSIM 6. I have not attended the last LISSIM but I hope this time I will be able to make it. I would like to get a grasp of the semantics of the quantifiers which I am looking at as well. It will help me understand the problem better and thus look for a possible explanation for the data given.

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