Questions and Question‐word Incorporating Quantifiers in Malayalam

Abstract

The Malayalam conjunctive suffix ‐ um and disjunctive suffix ‐ oo , when suffixed to (a phrase containing) a “question word,” yield (respectively) a universal quantifier and an existential quantifier. A “question word” (I assume) signifies a variable (Nishigauchi 1990); and a conjunction/disjunction operator applied to a variable interprets it as an “infinite conjunction/disjunction” (the meaning of a universal/existential quantifier). The operator “applies to” a question word by “association with focus” (Rooth 1985). Malayalam has the disjunctive ‐ oo at the end of a question. Universally (I claim), questions contain a disjunction operator generated as the head of ForceP (of the “more finely articulated C” of Rizzi 1997). From this position it applies to question words by association with focus, yielding question interpretations that (I show) capture the semanticists' intuition that wh ‐phrases are existential quantifiers. Association with focus yields a satisfactory account of wh ‐in‐situ, and I show that it must apply even to wh ‐in‐C.