Open AccessOn shared indefinite expressions in coordinative structures
Author(s) -
Kerstin Schwabe
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.21.2001.94
Subject(s) - plural , distributive property , interpretation (philosophy) , focus (optics) , ellipsis (linguistics) , set (abstract data type) , computer science , expression (computer science) , reading (process) , verb , linguistics , mathematics , pure mathematics , artificial intelligence , physics , philosophy , programming language , optics
The paper shows that shared indefinite expressions in coordinative constructions may differ with respect to their referential properties. This is due to their being either in a focused or in a nonfocused shared constituent. Their different information-structural status follows from Rooth's theory on focus interpretation. Thus it follows that focused shared constitutents must be beyond the actual coordination and that coordinative constructions with unfocused shared constituents can be represented as ellipsis. In a focused shared constituent indefinite expressions may have a specific and an non specific unique reading as well as an non specific distributive one. For the latter we outline the idea that subjects and objects in the actual coordination form a pair of sets to which a distributing operator is attached. The set formation is further supported by plural pronouns referring to the respective set and by plural verb agreement in subsequent expressions.