Abstract
Even though the interpretation of Free Choice Items such as any has been on debate for more than 50 years (Vendler, 1974, Dayal, 1998, Horn, 2000, etc.), it is relatively more recent in Spanish (Menéndez-Benito, 2005, Giannakidou and Quer, 2013, among others). Some have analyzed it as a universal quantifier, neither taking its free choiceness into account nor contexts which seem to be problematic for the universal account (see, for instance, Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria, 2011). In this article, we defend that cualquier is a universal indeterminate pronoun which involves freedom of choice (as in the original proposal by Vendler, 1974). We will take into account data (taken from https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/web-dial) which has not been properly considered. We will analyze the interaction of negation and cualquier in Rioplantese Spanish in the subject position of negative generic statements, in the object position in negative episodic statements, and in a non argumental position. We will combine an alternative semantics approach to the analysis of the FCI cualquier, inspired in Menéndez-Benito (2010) and Aloni (2019), with a syntactic approach to negation inspired in Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria (2011).
Highlights
The interpretation of Free Choice Items such as any has been on debate for more than 50 years (Vendler, 1974, Hintikka, 1980, Kadmon and Landman, 1993, Dayal, 1998, Horn, 2000, etc.)
The discussion on whether the Spanish FCI cualquier is a universal, an existential, both or an indefinite is relatively more recent (Menendez-Benito, 2005, Arregui, 2006, Giannakidou and Quer, 2013, among others). Some have analyzed it as a universal quantifier, neither taking its free choiceness into account nor contexts as 1 which seem to be problematic for the universal account
These examples show the expected behaviour of a universal quantifier, and disallow an existential interpretation. Since these examples show that negation scopes over cualquier regardless of its position, it can only be the negation of a universal. We can explain this behavior if we use the alternative semantics framework we presented, as well as the data with regards to the interaction of negation and the universal quantifier in Spanish
Summary
The interpretation of Free Choice Items such as any has been on debate for more than 50 years (Vendler, 1974, Hintikka, 1980, Kadmon and Landman, 1993, Dayal, 1998, Horn, 2000, etc.). The discussion on whether the Spanish FCI cualquier is a universal, an existential, both or an indefinite is relatively more recent (Menendez-Benito, 2005, Arregui, 2006, Giannakidou and Quer, 2013, among others) Some have analyzed it as a universal quantifier, neither taking its free choiceness into account nor contexts as 1 which seem to be problematic for the universal account (see, for instance, Bustos, 1986 and Etxepare and Uribe-Etxebarria, 2011). We will assume, following Menendez-Benito (2005, 2010), that FCI cualquier is a universal indeterminate pronoun that may be analyzed in the Hamblin alternative semantics framework of Kratzer and Shimoyama (2002).
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