Haslinger Nina, Hien Alain Noindonmon, Rosina Emil Eva, Schmitt Viola, Wurm Valerie
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Pariser Straße 1, 10719 Berlin, Germany.
Nat Lang Linguist Theory. 2025;43(4):3147-3214. doi: 10.1007/s11049-025-09673-5. Epub 2025 Jul 9.
Universal quantifiers differ in whether they are restricted to distributive interpretations, like English , or permit non-distributive interpretations, like English . This interpretational difference is traditionally captured by positing two unrelated lexical entries for distributive and non-distributive quantification. But this lexical approach does not explain why distributivity correlates with number: cross-linguistically, distributive universal quantifiers typically take singular complements, while non-distributive quantifiers consistently take plural complements. We derive this correlation by proposing a single lexical meaning for the universal quantifier, which derives a non-distributive interpretation if the restrictor predicate is closed under sum, but a distributive interpretation if it is quantized. Support comes from languages in which the same lexical item expresses distributive or non-distributive quantification depending on the number of the complement. For languages like English that have different expressions for non-distributive and distributive quantification, we propose that the distributive forms contain an additional morphosyntactic element that is semantically restricted to combine with a predicate of atomic individuals. This is motivated by the fact that in several languages, the distributive form is structurally more complex than the non-distributive form and sometimes even contains it transparently. We further show that in such languages, there are empirical advantages to taking the choice between distributive and non-distributive quantifier forms to be driven by semantic properties of the restrictor predicate, rather than morphosyntactic number.
全称量词在是否仅限于分配性解释（如英语中的情况）还是允许非分配性解释（同样如英语中的情况）方面存在差异。这种解释上的差异传统上是通过为分配性和非分配性量化设定两个不相关的词汇项来体现的。但这种词汇方法并没有解释为什么分配性与数相关：从跨语言的角度来看，分配性全称量词通常带单数补足语，而非分配性量词则始终带复数补足语。我们通过为全称量词提出单一的词汇意义来推导这种相关性，如果限定词谓词在和之下封闭，则会得出非分配性解释，但如果它是量化的，则会得出分配性解释。证据来自一些语言，在这些语言中，同一个词汇项根据补足语的数来表达分配性或非分配性量化。对于像英语这样在非分配性和分配性量化上有不同表达方式的语言，我们提出分配性形式包含一个额外的形态句法元素，该元素在语义上被限制为与原子个体的谓词相结合。这是由以下事实所推动的：在几种语言中，分配性形式在结构上比非分配性形式更复杂，有时甚至明显包含非分配性形式。我们进一步表明，在这样的语言中，让分配性和非分配性量词形式之间的选择由限定词谓词的语义属性而非形态句法上的数来驱动具有实证优势。
