Licensing Conditions for Indefinite Pronouns in Modern Hebrew

Abstract

The dissertation investigates syntactic and semantic aspects of the indefinite pronoun system in Modern Hebrew and consists of an experimental part and a theoretical part. The experimental part presents the grammaticality judgment task conducted to test three theoretical questions: (1) the relation between negation and the licensing of AF `any' and KOL `any'; (2) the contrast between EYZE `some' and EYZESEHU `some' in terms of specificity; and (3) the correlation between syntactic position and free choice readings. Three main theoretical findings are contributed by this work. First, it is shown that from a typological viewpoint, Hebrew, a Semitic language, patterns with Romance and Germanic languages, rather than Japanese-type languages, in having indefinite pronouns specialized for particular operators available in the discourse. Second, the thesis proposes a novel unified syntax-semantics for KOL which accounts for its interpretational variability. Working with the Kratzer and Shimoyama (2002) framework where indefinite pronouns generate sets of individual alternatives, the semantics of a KOL--modified noun phrase is formalized as a variable and containing a restriction. When this restriction ranges over kinds, KOL receives a generic reading; when the restriction is over a contextually specified set of entities, KOL has an episodic reading. In these cases, the KOL--phrase moves to the argument position of a universal quantifier which binds the individual alternatives generated by the KOL--phrase. If KOL stays in situ, the individual alternatives are allowed to expand into propositional alternatives, resulting in the free choice reading. Third, I discuss the DP-internal structure of [eyze(N)se-hu (N)] and [(N) kol(N)se-hu], treating 'se-hu' as a CP. I propose that there is a correlation between the postnominal position and the free choice readings of these pronouns, suggesting that domain restrictions, usually derived in the semantics-pragmatics, may also be encoded in the syntax. If this hypothesis is on the right track, it could provide us with a better understanding of how and when in the process of language acquisition domain restrictions found with indefinite pronouns are acquired.