The scope of UQ

Firstly, when both UQ and another verb are in AF construction and UQ appears in any position before the oblique marker tu, the universal scope always falls on the grammatical subject, as in (20), where Quantifier Floating (QF) is allowed.

(20) a. m-niz sinsi ‘nay p<m>ukun tu pataqsian AF-all teacher that <AF>hit OBL student

= b. m-niz p<m>ukun sinsi ‘nay tu pataqsian

= c. sinsi ‘nay m-niz p<m>ukun tu pataqsian

= d. p<m>ukun m-niz sinsi ‘nay tu pataqsian

= e. sinsi ‘nay p<m>ukun m-niz tu pataqsian

= f. p<m>ukun sinsi ‘nay m-niz tu pataqsian

‘The teachers all hit the students.’

*‘The teachers hit all the students.’

However, when UQ appears between the oblique marker tu and an oblique nominal, the scope falls on that oblique nominal instead, rather than the grammatical subject, as illustrated in (21).

(21) p<m>ukun sinsi ‘nay tu m-niz pataqsian <AF>hit teacher that OBL AF-all student

‘The teachers hit all the students.’

* ‘The teachers all hit the students.’

Interestingly, if we move the UQ in (21) to the sentence final position, the result turns out to be ambiguous, as in (22).

(22) p<m>ukun sinsi ‘nay tu pataqsian m-niz <AF>hit teacher that OBL student AF-all

‘The teachers hit all the students.’

or ‘The teachers all hit the students.’

Although it may be surprising that the UQ in (22) also takes the grammatical subject as its scope, we found many similar examples, as shown in (23).

(23) a. m-‘etung Runanay tu taquq m-niz AF-kill man OBL chicken AF-all ‘The men all killed chickens.’

b. matiw Runanay sa damu m-niz AF.go man LOC village AF-all ‘The men all went to the village.’

c. m-nanguy Runanay ta iRuR-an m-niz AF-swim man LOC river-LOC AF-all ‘The men all swam in the river.’

Therefore, it seems that the AF form of UQ is capable of two syntactic roles. On the one hand, examples in (21) and (22) (the first reading) suggest m-niz is a nominal modifier which is either prenominal or postnominal. On the other hand, given the floating cases in (20b), (20e), (22) (the second reading), and (23), m-niz is more like an adverb.

Secondly, when UQ is in AF construction while another verb in LF construction, the universal scope always falls on the grammatical subject, as in (24), where Quantifier Floating is again allowed.

(24) a. m-niz pukun-an-na sinsi ‘nay pataqsian AF-all hit-LF-3PL.GEN teacher that student

= b. pukun-an-na m-niz na sinsi ‘nay pataqsian

= c. pukun-an-na sinsi ‘nay pataqsian m-niz

‘The students were all hit by the teacher.’

* ‘The students were hit by all the teachers.’

However, since m-niz is a prenominal or postnominal modifier, ambiguity may arise when case marking is covert, as in (25), where the nominal case marker is absent. In this special case, m-niz can quantify over the agent (in covert genitive) or the patient (in covert nominative).

(25) pukun-an-na sinsi ‘nay m-niz pataqsian ‘nay hit-LF-3PL.GEN teacher that AF-all student that

‘The teachers hit all the students.’

or ‘The teachers all hit the students.’

Thirdly, when UQ is in LF construction, the universal scope always falls on the grammatical subject, as in (26), where Quantifier Floating is disallowed.

(26)

a. niz-an-na p<m>ukun na sinsi ‘nay pataqsian all-LF-3PL.GEN <AF>hit GEN teacher that student *b. p<m>ukun niz-an-na sinsi ‘nay pataqsian

*c. p<m>ukun sinsi ‘nay niz-an-na pataqsian *d. p<m>ukun sinsi ‘nay pataqsian niz-an-na

‘The students were all hit by the teacher.’

* ‘The students were hit by all the teachers.’

In other words, whenever UQ is in LF, it appears only in the sentence initial position, and another predicate is always in AF due to the AF constraint in Kavalan. This fact makes the LF form of UQ have a syntactic status quite different from its counterpart in AF. Explicitly, while m-niz is either an adverb or a nominal modifier, niz-an is a

verb. Compare, for example, the contrast in (27), where only the LF form of UQ can function as an independent predicate.

(27) a. niz-an-na sunis ‘nay benina ‘nay all-LF-3PL.GEN child that banana that

‘The bananas were (eaten up) by the children.

*

b. m-niz sunis ‘nay tu benina ‘nay AF-all child that OBL banana that

Intended meaning: ‘All the children (ate) the bananas.’

The contrast results from the fact that while niz-an predicates over an agent who executes an exhaustive action (i.e. eating-up in this case) upon a patient, m-niz quantifiers over a universal set of individuals. The difference between the AF and LF form of UQ in Kavalan is even more transparent in the following example:

(28) benina ‘nay m-niz niz-an-na q<m>an na sunis ‘nay m-niz banana that AF-all all-LF-3PL.GEN <AF>eat GEN child that AF-all ‘All the bananas were eaten up by all the children.’

There are three tokens of UQ in this example, two in AF and one in LF. While niz-an emphasizes a complete consumption of the bananas, the two tokens of m-niz specify the universal set of the consumers (i.e. the children) and the consumed (i.e. the bananas).

7.2.1.2 Distributivity vs. collectivity

It is well-known that “all” and “every/each” in English suggest different readings, though they are both UQ’s. While “all” typically implies a collective reading,

“every/each” definitely expresses a distributive reading. In Kavalan, neither m-niz nor

niz-an distinguishes “every/each” from “all”. In other words, “every/each” and “all”

share a common form in Kavalan, as is also the case in Portuguese, German, Ancient Greek, and Hebrew (Haspelmath 1995: 378).

To distinguish the collective reading from the distributive one, some adverbials are required, as illustrated in (29), where masulun ‘together’ and tatungtungus

‘separately’ are both syntactically verbs.

(29) a. masulun s<m>uzuq tu u-siq qitun ya lazat a yau m-niz together <AF>pull OBL CFL.NHUM.one car NOM person LNK that AF-all ‘All the men pulled one car together.’ (There is only one car.)

b. tatungtungus s<m>uzuq tu u-siq qitun separately <AF>pull OBL CFL.NHUM.one car

ya lazat a yau m-niz

NOM person LNK that AF-all

‘All the men each pulled one car.’ (There are many cars.)

Interestingly, in addition to the adverbial tatungtungus ‘separately’, Kavalan has another means to indicate distributivity. Specifically, the schema “nan-X” (where X is a number) indicates the number of entities being distributed, as illustrated in (30).

(30) a. m-Rasa nan-tulu tu sudad ya kin-lima pataqsian AF-buy NAN-three OBL book NOM CLF.HUM-five student

‘Five students bought three books each.’ (three-book-buying per

b. nan-tulu-an-ku Rasibu bula tu kelisiw ya sunis-ku NAN-three-LF-1SG.GEN hundred give OBL money NOM child-1SG.GEN ‘I gave each of my children three hundred (dollars).’ (500-receiving per

child)

In the literature, the entities being distributed over are termed the distributive-key and those that are being distributed the distributive-share. Accordingly, while “every/each”

in English is a distributive-key universal quantifier, the morpheme nan- in Kavalan is a distributive-share universal quantifier. The schema “nan-X” is quite interesting since

distributive-share universal quantifiers are crosslinguistically less common than distributive-key universal quantifiers (Gil 1995: 344).