Indeterminate Pronouns in Old English
A Compositional Semantic Analysis
| dc.bibliographicCitation.firstPage | 203 | |
| dc.bibliographicCitation.issue | 3 | |
| dc.bibliographicCitation.lastPage | 269 | |
| dc.bibliographicCitation.volume | 23 | |
| dc.contributor.affiliation | Beck, Sigrid; Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany | |
| dc.contributor.author | Beck, Sigrid | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-07-24T09:51:36Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-07-24T09:51:36Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020 | |
| dc.date.updated | 2023-05-15T01:54:33Z | |
| dc.description.abstract | Abstract Indeterminate pronouns in Old English (expressions like hwa ‘who/what’ and hwelc ‘which’) permit several interpretations in addition to their use as interrogative pronouns, for example readings as universal or existential quantifiers. They combine with morphological prefixes (ge- ‘and, also’ and a- ‘always, ever’), which change the range of possible interpretations. Old English indeterminate pronouns are shown to contribute a crosslinguistically hitherto unattested pattern of available interpretations. In particular, bare indeterminate pronouns have a universal interpretation and ge-indeterminate pronouns can be both universal and existential. This paper offers an alternative semantic analysis in the spirit of Hamblin (Found Lang 10:41–53, 1973) and Shimoyama (Nat Lang Semant 14:139–173, 2006). A compositional semantics is given for the pronouns and the prefixes, which derives the available readings. The paper ends with a proposal for compositional semantic change relating Old English indeterminate pronouns to their modern descendants. | en |
| dc.identifier.doi | 10.1007/s10828-020-09116-y | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?fidaac-11858/2943 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.relation.issn | 1383-4924 | |
| dc.relation.journal | The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics | |
| dc.rights | L::CC BY 4.0 | |
| dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject.ddc | ddc:420 | |
| dc.subject.field | englishstudies | |
| dc.subject.field | linguistics | |
| dc.title | Indeterminate Pronouns in Old English | |
| dc.title.alternative | A Compositional Semantic Analysis | |
| dc.type | article | |
| dc.type.version | publishedVersion | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication |