LingVaria (May 2017)

Nieokreśloność a kwantyfikacja: współdziałanie kategorii semantycznych

  • Aleksander Kiklewicz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12797/LV.12.2017.23.03
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 23

Abstract

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Indefiniteness and Quantification: Cooperation of Semantic Categories The author considers the relationship between the category of quantification and the category of definiteness/ indefiniteness. In the reference theory, which prevailed in linguistics in the 1980s and 1990s, these two categories were considered in the light of integration, i.e. as varieties of a single semantic function. Therefore, quantifiers were regarded as exponents of the referential function of nominal groups, and considered together with such entities as determiners, articles, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, and others. The author shows that this concept is wrong. True, semantic categories interact with one another but each of them has its own functional identity. The author treats quantifiers as one of three types of quantitative determination of nominal groups, and also shows the completion of quantification semantics in expressions with indefinite pronouns, as well as the completion of indefiniteness in expressions with quantifiers.

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