Modal indefinites and semantic variation Lessons from Chuj

Abstract

Recent work proposes that modal auxiliaries project their domains from an event variable, their ‘anchor’ (Hacquard 2006, 2010, Kratzer 2013). Based on the Spanish modal indefinite uno cualquiera, Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2018) conclude that modal indefinites do too. This paper argues that yalnhej DPs, a type of modal indefinite in Chuj, an understudied Mayan language, support this conclusion. These DPs are existential quantifiers that convey an at-issue modal component, like uno cualquiera. They pattern with uno cualquiera in conveying random choice modality with volitional verbs, but only when they are tied to internal argument positions. Yalnhej DPs depart from uno cualquiera in that they can also convey epistemic modality. They also depart from other epistemic modal indefinites insofar as they can, but do not have to, describe situations where the speaker knows that the whole domain satisfies the existential claim. Our analysis of yalnhej DPs builds upon the analysis of uno cualquiera in Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito 2018, from which it departs in assuming that yalnhej DPs tolerate anchors with epistemic content. Furthermore, in line with other Chuj DPs, yalnhej DPs are not upper bounded. This results in an epistemic component that does not convey speaker ignorance when the whole domain satisfies the existential claim. Finally, unlike uno cualquiera, yalnhej DPs do not have an interpretation conveying that the witness of the existential claim is unremarkable. We link this fact to a lack of predicative uses, in support of the view that the random choice and ‘unremarkable’ interpretations stem from an ambiguity, as anticipated in Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito 2018 and Alonso-Ovalle & Royer 2021.

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