Two Views on Epistemic Indefinites

Abstract

Abstract Epistemic indefinites are existential determiners that convey ignorance on the part of the speaker. This paper reviews two types of accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of these items. The first one derives the ignorance component as a quantity implicature that arises via competition with alternative domains of quantification (; ; ; ). The second one claims that the ignorance effect comes about because epistemic indefinites impose a shift on the method of identification required by the context (; ). Although both approaches have improved our understanding of epistemic indefinites, we conclude that neither of them predicts the whole range of variation attested to date.