Abstract
The exhaustion particles of the Yi languages (Tibeto-Burman languages from Southwest China) are sentence-end morphemes with a surprising wealth of possible interpretations. With gradeable states they convey the meaning of superlative ('most'), with accomplishments they function as completive particle ('exhaustively'), and in ungradeable states, activities or achievements they act as all particles, i.e. as universal non-distributive quantifiers, on the first argument. A unified account of the all-, completive- and superlative-meanings is proposed. It is argued that all three notions basically divide their respective domain (= objects, events or states) into three types: a singular domain type, a quantized domain type and a homogeneous domain type. For events there is also a fourth domain type, the bounded domain type, which does not have an analogy with objects and states.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call