Domain Restrictions, Modal Implicatures and Plurality: Spanish Algunos

摘要

In language after language, we find existential determiners that convey information about the speaker's epistemic state. To date, research on these 'epistemic indefinites' has focused on their singular forms. The present work brings plural epistemic indefinites into the picture by analysing the contrast between Spanish algun and its plural counterpart algunos. While algun signals speaker's ignorance, algunos does not. We provide an account of this contrast that builds on our previous research on algun (Alonso-Ovalle & Menendez-Benito 2008, 2010). In those works, we proposed that the epistemic effect conveyed by algun comes about because this indefinite imposes an antisingleton constraint on its domain of quantification. In this article, we argue that the interaction of this constraint with plurality blocks the epistemic effect. The analysis crucially hinges on the assumption that plural noun phrases are number neutral, as argued, for instance, in Sauerland et al. (2005), among others.