Open Accessnew kind of epistemic indefinite
Author(s) -
V. Dawson
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
zas papers in linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1435-9588
DOI - 10.21248/zaspil.60.2018.471
Subject(s) - ignorance , scope (computer science) , implicature , epistemology , philosophy , constraint (computer aided design) , linguistics , mathematics , computer science , pragmatics , geometry , programming language
Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India) has two series of epistemic indefinites: one whoseepistemic effects arise via an anti-singleton constraint similar to Spanish alg´un (Alonso-Ovalleand Men´endez-Benito, 2010), and another, wide-scope indefinite whose epistemic effects mustbe derived differently. I propose that for these latter indefinites, ignorance arises not throughdomain constraints, but as a result of their choice functional nature through competition withother indefinites. Tiwa’s wide scope indefinites then constitute a new kind of epistemic indefinite,showing that ignorance implicatures for indefinites can arise through different sorts ofcompetition.Keywords: epistemic indefinites, wide scope indefinites, choice functions, implicature, Tiwa.