LiVVaL Linguaggio e Variazione | Variation in Language

Series | LiVVaL
Edited book | Partitive Constructions and Partitive Elements Within and Across Language Borders in Europe
Chapter | The Indefinite Article as an Exponent for Partition

The Indefinite Article as an Exponent for Partition

Abstract
The article deals with the phenomenon of the indefinite article occurring with mass nouns of the type I brauch a geld (‘lit. I need a money’), inducing a partition reading for a vague amount. After a survey of its distribution in the Southern German dialects Bavarian and Alemannic, based on a large-scale empirical investigation, the paper focusses on the fine-grained distinction between subsets and subkinds whereby the latter occur with the indefinite article in all variants. A fine-grained functional structure is suggested where the respective functional heads are immediately adjacent, giving rise to the possibility of extending the indefinite article to subsets.


Open access

Submitted: June 9, 2023 | Accepted: July 19, 2023 | Published May 16, 2024 | Language: en

Keywords Mass nounBavarianSubkindsKindsPartitionAlemannicIndefinite article


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