new kind of epistemic indefinite
Virginia Dawson · ZAS Papers in Linguistics · 2018
Tiwa (Tibeto-Burman; India) has two series of epistemic indefinites: one whoseepistemic effects arise via an anti-singleton constraint similar to Spanish alg´un (Alonso-Ovalleand Men´endez-Benito, 2010), and another, wide-scope indefinite whose epistemic effects mustbe derived differently. I propose that for these latter indefinites, ignorance arises not throughdomain constraints, but as a result of their choice functional nature through competition withother indefinites. Tiwa’s wide scope indefinites then constitute a new kind of epistemic indefinite,showing that ignorance implicatures for indefinites can arise through different sorts ofcompetition.Keywords: epistemic indefinites, wide scope indefinites, choice functions, implicature, Tiwa.