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Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2020
Edited by Elena Tribushinina and Mark Dingemanse
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 37] 2020
► pp. 2–22

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Event-distributivity and exhaustivity

Insights into distributive share markers from experiments with German jeweils

 | University of Groningen | University of Nantes
 | University of Groningen
 | University of Groningen
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 27 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.00034.bos
Abstract
Distributive-share markers such as jeweils in German or po in Serbian allow for event-distributive readings, where events are distributed over spatio-temporal units, unlike distributive quantifiers such as each in English that only allow individual-distributive readings. Some researchers propose that German jeweils should be analyzed as a universal event-distributive quantifier. In contrast, other researchers claim distributive share markers (e.g. Serbian po) are simply event plurality markers. We investigated these claims with jeweils in two experiments. Experiment 1 tested if both individual and spatial (event) distributive readings are readily available for transitive sentences in German, and if there is an exhaustivity requirement on the restrictor argument. Experiment 2 was designed to force event-distributive readings and further disambiguate the results from Experiment 1. Our findings suggest that jeweils seems to be a true universal event quantifier, and highlight that distributive share markers can differ in fundamental features cross-linguistically.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Experimental studies of exhaustivity requirement
    • 2.2German jeweils
  • 3.Experiment 1
    • 3.1Method
      • 3.1.1Participants
      • 3.1.2Materials
    • 3.2Predictions
    • 3.3Results of Experiment 1
      • 3.3.1Analysis
    • 3.4Discussion of Experiment 1
  • 4.Experiment 2
    • 4.1Method
      • 4.1.1Participants
      • 4.1.2Materials
    • 4.2Results of Experiment 2
      • 4.2.1Analysis
    • 4.3Discussion of Experiment 2
  • 5.General discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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