Topic: HUMAN SEMANTICS
MEASURES AND INDEFINITES
by Hana Flip
Source: Semantics Archive
In this paper I explore the function of prefixes as verb-internal operators that have distinct semantic effects on the interpretation of nominal arguments. I will focus on the Russian prefix n a - used in its cumulative sense of approximately a {relatively/sufficiently/exceedingly} large quantity (of), and to a lesser extent on its converse, namely, the delimitative/attenuative po-. Such prefixes have one notable and neglected property: namely, they systematically require that nominal arguments targeted by them have a non-specific indefinite interpretation, regardless whether the verb they form is perfective or imperfective. I will argue that the semantics of such prefixes is to be assimilated to that of measure phrases and propose an additional novel role for them: namely, as morphological markers of a particular mode of composition that is available for semantically incomplete nominal arguments that have a non-specific indefinite interpretation. If this analysis is correct, then it precludes measure prefixes in Slavic languages from being analyzed as overt morphological exponents of the perfective operator, contrary to the majority of current analyses which take this to be the main or the only function of Slavic prefixes as a whole class. Instead, this analysis enforces the view on which measure prefixes function as modifiers of eventuality types expressed by `aspectless' verbal predicates.
Download
Posted by Tony Marmo
at 07:24 BST
Updated: Saturday, 25 September 2004 07:26 BST
