Since each series of indeterminate pronouns participates in several different types of interpretation, the overt material doesn’t unambiguously determine sentence meaning. Hamblin 1973 Shimoyama 2001 Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002)-indeterminate pronouns introduce alternatives into the semantics. My analysis is based on an alternative semantics for the indeterminate pronoun (e.g. We will see that OE provides an interesting case study, partially at odds with generalizations on indeterminate pronouns (see, e.g., Mitrovic 2014 Szabolcsi 2015 for recent discussion) and hence requires particular analytical tools. The goal is to add to the existing literature on indeterminate pronouns a survey of the data from OE and their compositional semantic analysis, neither of which is available at present. The data raise interesting questions for semantic composition: What is the semantic contribution of the indeterminate pronoun? How does the sentence come to express a universal or existential statement or a question? What determines the range of possible sentence interpretations for a given indeterminate pronoun? These questions are the focus of the present paper. Unattested: a-series as interrogative pronouns: (K-T Ælfred’s Boethius, Sedgefield 1899, 149 (final prayer)) ‘And ever, to time without end.’ (‘…without any end…’) The a-series can, in addition to the universal reading in (3c), lead to an NPI interpretation (6a), but not, according to the available evidence, to a question meaning (6b) (see again the literature cited above). The ge-series has a universal and an existential interpretation (5a, b). For example, the bare series can, in addition to the interrogative interpretation (3a), lead to an existential and a universal interpretation (4a, b). Rypins in Three OE Prose Texts in MS Cotton Vitellius A XV, EETS, 161, 1924)Īll three series participate in several different interpretations. (K-T, Alex 41.8: Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle, ed. ‘I ordered that everything be done as he asked us.’ 40, 19 The Anglo-Saxon version of the Holy Gospels, ed. ‘he to everyone of the people gave heaven’s kingdom’ 2 for a detailed explanation of the presentation of the examples.) Parallel forms exist for other indeterminate pronouns like hwelc ‘which’ and hwær ‘where’ I refer to them as the bare series, the ge-series, and the a-series of OE indeterminate pronouns. I illustrate in (3) the relevant forms of hwa ‘who, what’ Footnote 2: in addition to the bare indeterminate pronoun (3a), there is a form with the prefix ge- ‘and, also’ ge- hwa (3b) and a form with the additional prefix a- ‘always, ever’ æghwa (3c) (see, e.g., Bosworth and Toller 1898/1921 Einenkel 1904 Kahlas-Tarkka 1987). These forms and interpretations make them interesting semantically. But PDE’s ancestor Old English (OE) Footnote 1 had proper indeterminate pronouns, with derived forms and several possible interpretations. Present Day English (PDE) wh-pronouns do not have uses as universal or existential expressions. Ne-kur ‘anywhere’ (in the immediate scope of negation) The paper ends with a proposal for compositional semantic change relating Old English indeterminate pronouns to their modern descendants. A compositional semantics is given for the pronouns and the prefixes, which derives the available readings. This paper offers an alternative semantic analysis in the spirit of Hamblin (Found Lang 10:41–53, 1973) and Shimoyama (Nat Lang Semant 14:139–173, 2006). In particular, bare indeterminate pronouns have a universal interpretation and ge-indeterminate pronouns can be both universal and existential. Old English indeterminate pronouns are shown to contribute a crosslinguistically hitherto unattested pattern of available interpretations. They combine with morphological prefixes ( ge- ‘and, also’ and a- ‘always, ever’), which change the range of possible interpretations. Indeterminate pronouns in Old English (expressions like hwa ‘who/what’ and hwelc ‘which’) permit several interpretations in addition to their use as interrogative pronouns, for example readings as universal or existential quantifiers.
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