Epistemic indefinites and methods of identification
نویسندگان
چکیده
Epistemic Indefinites (henceforth EIs) are indefinites in which this ignorance inference is conventionalized (Jayez and Tovena, 2006; Alonso-Ovalle and MenéndezBenito, 2010). Examples of epistemic indefinite determiners are German irgendein (Haspelmath, 1997; Kratzer and Shimoyama, 2002) and Italian un qualche (Zamparelli, 2007). Sentences (2) and (3) make an existential claim, and additionally convey that the speaker does not know who the witness of this claim is. Hence, adding the continuation ‘Guess who?’, which would contradict the ignorance inference, results in oddity. In contrast, the plain indefinite somebody allows for this type of continuation, as illustrated in (4).
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