Year: 2021
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Diachronic typology of partitivesThe present paper investigates diachronic developments that partitives undergo over the course of time.First, it is shown that true-partitives (part-whole-relation partitives) encoded by adpositional strategies are not stable cross-linguistically and tend to develop into pseudo-partitives, which are defined as constructions that encode simple quantification but retain the morphology of true-partitives.Secondly, the frequency bias towards indefiniteness drives the emergence of generalized partitives -partitives with no explicit realization of the subset referent.Generalized partitives tend to undergo a closer relationship with the verb.Moreover, generalized partitives may develop into markers (co-)expressing such predicate-level functions as aspectuality (the delimitative meaning) and discontinuous predicate negation, as well as hypothetical events, as well as develop into differential object markers.
Source: De Gruyter eBooks
Author: Ilja A. Seržant
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4200150897