Czech indefinites kdokoliv and cokoliv: Semantic analysis of licensing contexts

STRACHOŇOVÁ, Hana. Czech indefinites kdokoliv and cokoliv: Semantic analysis of licensing contexts. In Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium. 2013.

Basic information

• Original name: Czech indefinites kdokoliv and cokoliv: Semantic analysis of licensing contexts
• Authors: STRACHOŇOVÁ, Hana (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium, 2013.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60200 6.2 Languages and Literature
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/13:00068577
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: free choice items; Czech indefinites; corpus study; formal semantics
• Tags: rivok

Abstract

Czech lexems containing the -koliv morpheme (kdokoliv 'anyone', cokoliv 'anything', kterýkoliv 'any', kdekoliv 'anywhere', etc.) are traditionally treated as indefinites (i.e. Komárek, 1986). We can find more o less the same semantic characteristic of them throughout the Czech literature: these items contain the semantic feature of generality (Kopečný, 1980) or generalization, reinforcement (Rejzek, 2001), arbitrariness, indifference and irrelevance (Komárek, 1980). But we are not aware of a study that would deal with the fact that the expressions with this specific morphology are excluded for instance from simple episodic past statements, see (1); in contrast with modal statements, see (2), imperatives, see (3), or future statements, see (4). (1) #Adam koupil jakékoliv víno. Adam buy: 3 sg, Past any wine: Acc (2) Adam mohl koupit jakékoliv víno. Adam can: 3 sg, Past buy: inf any wine: Acc 'Adam could buy any wine.' (3) Adame, kup jakékoliv víno! Adam: Voc buy: Imper, sg. any wine 'Adam, buy any wine!' (4) Zítra Adam koupí jakékoliv víno a vyrazíme k tobě. tomorrow Adam buy: 3 sg, Fut any wine and go: 1 pl, Fut to you: Dat 'Adam will buy any wine tomorrow and then we will go to your place.' Non-Czech linguistic literature usually treats this type of items as so-called free choice items (FCI): expressions that are semantically sensitive to the polarity of the statement. Giannakidou (2011) examined the distribution of equivalent expressions cross-linguistically and defined the licensing semantic context as non-veridical environment, for both FCIs and NPIs. Veridicality is then defined as a property of the function that operates on the denotation of embedded sentence. A veridical function expresses a commitment of the speaker to the truth of the embedded sentence; see the main clause in (5). Non-veridical function doesn't express that commitment.