This dissertation has three main goals:
1. To provide an analysis of the syntax and semantics of Salish determiners and quantifiers.
2. To provide an account of differences in the determiner and quantification systems of Salish
and English which reduces cross-linguistic variation to a minimum, in line with a
restrictive theory of Universal Grammar.
3. To assess the theoretical consequences of the analysis of Salish, including implications for
the range of possible cross-linguistic variation in determiner and quantification systems,
and the nature of the relationship between syntactic structure and interpretation.
I give evidence that one common method of expressing quantificational notions in English is
absent in Salish. While English readily allows quantifiers to occupy the syntactic position of the
determiner (as in every woman, most women), Salish languages do not allow such constructions
(see also Jelinek 1995). I propose that Salish and English exemplify opposite settings of a
Common Ground Parameter, which states that Salish determiners may not access the common
ground of the discourse. This parameter accounts not only for the absence of quantificational
determiners in Salish (since quantifiers presuppose existence, and therefore access the common
ground), it also derives several other differences between Salish and English determiners, such as
the absence of a definiteness distinction in Salish.
I further demonstrate that Salish possesses a robust system of DP-internal quantification, and that
quantificational DPs in Salish function as generalized quantifiers at logical form. This means that
the strong hypothesis that languages do not differ with respect to the presence or absence of
generalized quantifiers is upheld (cf. Barwise and Cooper 1981). Simple DPs in Salish, unlike in
English, do not function as generalized quantifiers. This result follows from the Common
Ground Parameter.
I give further evidence from St'at'imcets (Lillooet Salish) on the strong/weak quantifier
distinction; I argue that the interpretation of weak quantifiers is derivable directly from the overt
syntactic position of the quantifier.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/6111 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Matthewson, Lisa |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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