Indefinites, Dependent Plurality, and the Viability Requirement on Scalar Alternatives
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Spanish has two plural existential determiners, unos and algunos, which have been argued to contrast in a number of ways (Gutiérrez-Rexach 2001, 2010; Martí 2008, 2009). In this paper, we analyze an unexplored difference between these two determiners. A sentence like esos chicos tienen unas cabezas grandes (‘those kids have huge heads’) has a dependent plural reading: it can be true in a situation where those kids have exactly one huge head each. In contrast, its counterpart with algunos (esos chicos tienen algunas cabezas grandes) would be odd in that situation. Surprisingly, however, algunos seems to block dependent plural readings only when those are the only readings allowed by world knowledge: a sentence like esos chicos tienen algunas monedas viejas (‘those kids have some old coins’) can be true and felicitous in situations where the kids have exactly one coin each. We argue that the dependent plural readings of unos are cumulative readings, and we link the different behavior of unos and algunos with respect to dependent plurality to another well-known difference between them: that only algunos is a scalar item. Our investigation of the scalar component of algunos leads us to putting forth the hypothesis that scalar items require that at least one of the alternatives that they evoke be compatible with common knowledge.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".