'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish
In Mexican Spanish, the indefinite quantifier “uno que otro” is used to refer to low cardinalities of entities separated in space or time. Even though they have a strictly singular form, noun phrases with “uno que otro” always refer to more than one entity. And, despite their notional content of pl...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Septentrio Academic Publishing
2023-06-01
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| Series: | Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/borealis/article/view/6737 |
| _version_ | 1797806087417626624 |
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| author | José Fernando Chapa Barrios Violeta Vazquez Rojas |
| author_facet | José Fernando Chapa Barrios Violeta Vazquez Rojas |
| author_sort | José Fernando Chapa Barrios |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
In Mexican Spanish, the indefinite quantifier “uno que otro” is used to refer to low cardinalities of entities separated in space or time. Even though they have a strictly singular form, noun phrases with “uno que otro” always refer to more than one entity. And, despite their notional content of plurality, they reject collective predicates. In this paper we propose a semantic analysis of this expression as a distributive indefinite, that is, an indefinite whose reference covaries as a function of a distributive operator, in the way that adnominal distributive numerals do in other languages (Gil, 1983; Cable, 2014). Distributive numerals are supposed not to exist in Spanish; however, we claim that “uno que otro” is a distributed share marker (Choe, 1987; Bosnić et al 2020) related to a set of events (Balusu, 2006; Cable, 2014; Romero, 2006). This set is necessarily plural, although of low cardinality, and involves the precondition that its elements (atomic events) occur in non-contiguous time or space intervals. The semantic characterization of “uno que otro” as a distributive indefinite captures its referential dependence, its plural sense, its rejection of collective predicates and its content of separation as a secondary effect of a precondition on the events on which it is distributed. We thus show that Spanish has an adnominal expression of the same semantic nature as distributive numerals, with the precision that it requires distribution over events and not over entities.
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T06:01:59Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2febf03faae5451b9df838cfe3d739b8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1893-3211 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T06:01:59Z |
| publishDate | 2023-06-01 |
| publisher | Septentrio Academic Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj.art-2febf03faae5451b9df838cfe3d739b82023-06-12T10:37:28ZengSeptentrio Academic PublishingBorealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics1893-32112023-06-0112110.7557/1.12.1.6737'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican SpanishJosé Fernando Chapa Barrios0Violeta Vazquez Rojas1El Colegio de MexicoEl Colegio de México In Mexican Spanish, the indefinite quantifier “uno que otro” is used to refer to low cardinalities of entities separated in space or time. Even though they have a strictly singular form, noun phrases with “uno que otro” always refer to more than one entity. And, despite their notional content of plurality, they reject collective predicates. In this paper we propose a semantic analysis of this expression as a distributive indefinite, that is, an indefinite whose reference covaries as a function of a distributive operator, in the way that adnominal distributive numerals do in other languages (Gil, 1983; Cable, 2014). Distributive numerals are supposed not to exist in Spanish; however, we claim that “uno que otro” is a distributed share marker (Choe, 1987; Bosnić et al 2020) related to a set of events (Balusu, 2006; Cable, 2014; Romero, 2006). This set is necessarily plural, although of low cardinality, and involves the precondition that its elements (atomic events) occur in non-contiguous time or space intervals. The semantic characterization of “uno que otro” as a distributive indefinite captures its referential dependence, its plural sense, its rejection of collective predicates and its content of separation as a secondary effect of a precondition on the events on which it is distributed. We thus show that Spanish has an adnominal expression of the same semantic nature as distributive numerals, with the precision that it requires distribution over events and not over entities. https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/borealis/article/view/6737indefinitesquantificationdistributivitydistributive numeralsevent semanticsplurality |
| spellingShingle | José Fernando Chapa Barrios Violeta Vazquez Rojas 'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics indefinites quantification distributivity distributive numerals event semantics plurality |
| title | 'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish |
| title_full | 'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish |
| title_fullStr | 'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish |
| title_full_unstemmed | 'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish |
| title_short | 'Uno que otro': A distributive indefinite in Mexican Spanish |
| title_sort | uno que otro a distributive indefinite in mexican spanish |
| topic | indefinites quantification distributivity distributive numerals event semantics plurality |
| url | https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/borealis/article/view/6737 |
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