Thetic/Categorical Predication and the Semantics of Existential Determiners
Javier Gutierrez-Rexach University of California, Los Angeles gutier@ucla.edu
In this talk I defend the idea that Brentano's distinction between the thetic and the categorical judgement ( Kuroda, 1972; Sasse, 1987; Ladusaw, 1994; Lambrecht, 1994; etc.) is essential for the understanding of the semantic differences between the Spanish existential determiners "unos" and "algunos". Following Ladusaw's (1994) proposal that individual level predicates and partitive existential determiners only occur in categorical satements, I claim that "unos" occurs in thetic sentences and "algunos" in categorical sentences. I present an implementation of the distinction in a dynamic semantics framework (Kamp and Reyle, 1993): "unos" introduces a discourse referent in the DRS denoting a plural individual, but lacks quantificational force of its own. Therefore, it can only participate in thetic statements, which involve existential closure by a quantifier ranging over events or objects. "Algunos" has proper quantificational force and introduces a duplex condition in the DRS. It also adds the condition that the discourse referent it introduces in the universe of the embedded DRS is a subset of a plural discourse referent already present in the universe of the matrix DRS. When the determiner "unos" is focused, the judgement expressed by the sentence is categorical. Typically in this case the determiner is contrasted with the determiner "otros" I argue that the focused correlates introduce a duplex condition UNOS/OTROS and, as a consequence, that the statement becomes categorical.
