ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Online ISSN : 1884-3107
Print ISSN : 0918-3701
ISSN-L : 0918-3701
Article
NUMERAL INDETERMINATE PHRASES AND THEIR EXISTENTIAL QUANTIFICATION BY MO IN JAPANESE
TOSHIKO ODA
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2012 Volume 29 Issue 2 Pages 285-315

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Abstract
The quantificational suffix mo in Japanese has long been assumed to induce universal interpretation. However, there is a rare counterexample. The intuitive interpretation of na’n-satu-mo ‘what-CLvolume-MO’ is ‘a large number of volumes,’ which is existential. This study argues that in cases like this, the quantificational suffix mo is indeed an existential suffix, and that therefore the grammar has two types of quantificational suffix mo, namely universal mo and existential mo.
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© 2012 The English Linguistic Society of Japan
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