Indeterminate Numeral Quantifiers, ‘Some’ and ‘Many’ Readings, and Questions in Japanese

Kobuchi-Philip, Mana. 2010. Indeterminate Numeral Quantifiers, ‘Some’ and ‘Many’ Readings, and Questions in Japanese. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 35, 503-530. The Japanese indeterminate numeral quantifier (WH-CL) can directly combine with a quantificational particle ka or mo, forming, e.g., nan-nin-ka ‘what-CLperson-KA’ or nan-nin-mo ‘what-CLperson-MO’. This paper focuses on the empirical evidence that the former gives rise to a ‘some’ reading while the latter a ‘many’ reading, and discusses, from semantic and pragmatic perspectives, how these readings are formally derived. Semantically, we assume, in accord with Hamblin (1973), that the indeterminate numeral quantifier (NQ) is a set of alternatives. Following Jayaseelan (2001), ka is treated as a disjunction operator that takes a set of alternatives and produces a disjunction of it. Adopting Shimoyama’s direct restrictor view of indeterminate phrase quantification, we derive the ‘some’ reading of the indeterminate NQ-ka. In contrast, the ‘many’ reading of an indeterminate NQ-mo is attributed to the pragmatics of mo, which triggers a presupposition like English even (Karttunen and Peters 1979). (Utrecht University)