The semantics of Hmong indefinites

.title[
# The semantics of Hmong indefinites
]
.subtitle[
## Universität Bern, Switzerland (ICSTLL 58)
]
.author[
### Quartz Colvin
]
.institute[
### Rutgers University
]
.date[
### 2025-09-05
]

---

# Introduction

- This presentation argues for a choice functional analysis of the indefinite article in White Hmong.

- Rather than simply saying *ib* is an existential quantifier (asserts existence of the NP)

- Our discussion includes the indefinite article *ib* and two common classifiers (*tus* and *cov*).

## Research questions for broader project

1. What are the individual meanings of *ib*, *tus*, and *cov*?

2. How does the indefinite article *ib* combine with with *tus* and *cov* classifier phrases?

---

# Introduction

## Outline

1. Introduction + background

2. Hmong data

3. Proposal: bare classifier phrases

4. Proposal: indefinite phrases

5. Conclusion

---

# Language background

- SVO word order

- diaspora communities in the US speak White and Green Hmong, mainly from Laos

- monosyllabic words (no consonant codas)

- in RPA orthography the final letter of the word corresponds to a tone

- 7 tones: high rising, high falling, mid, low, mid-rising, low-falling creaky, mid/high-falling breathy

]

---

# Speaker information

- All data and discussion are based on elicitation on Zoom with **Ying** and in person with **Keng**, two (siblings!) White Hmong speakers who were raised in Wisconsin (WI).

- Keng was born in WI and Ying immigrated to the US at age 4.

- neither speaker can read/write Hmong

- **Keng:** White Hmong, English, high school German

- **Ying:** White Hmong, English, high school Japanese

---

# Hmong data

---

# Data

## Definites (Bare classifier phrases)

(1) ***tus aub*** can only refer to 1 unique, specific dog in the relevant context

(2) ***cov aub*** can only refer to the full group of dogs in the context

---

# Data

## Indefinites

(3) ***ib tus aub*** can refer to any one of the dogs in the context

(4) ***ib cov aub*** can refer to any subgroup of the dogs in the context

---

# Data

## Indefinites

(5) ***ib*** requires a classifier phrase

---

# Proposal: bare classifier phrases (definites)

---

# Proposal

## Definites

**Classifiers:**

- both take a bare noun as their argument

- *tus* requires that the NP's referent be "atomic" ("AT(x)") but *cov* has no atomicity requirement

- when they combine with an NP (bare noun, type *e*), they output a predicate type (⟨*e,t*⟩)

---

# Proposal

## Definites

**What do I need to know about this operator?**

- ι is roughly equivalent to a definite article like *the*

- as a null equivalent to *the*, *the dogs* would pick out the largest plurality of dogs (Chierchia 1997)

**For Hmong,**

- this ι operator gives us the unique definite reading for bare classifier phrases with *tus*

- and it gives us a maximal reading in bare classifier phrases with *cov*

---

# Proposal

## Definites (structures)

---

# Proposal

## Definites (composition)

---

# Proposal

## Definites (composition)

---

# Proposal: Indefinite phrases

---

# Proposal

## Indefinites

**What does this mean?**

- *ib* takes a predicate of type ⟨*e,t*⟩ as an argument

- it outputs another predicate of type ⟨*e,t*⟩

- the choice function applies to a grouping of entities and arbitrarily selects one of the entities as its referent (Winter 1997)

---

# Proposal

## Contexts

**How are the referents for each phrase determined in this context?**

- (14a) is a definite phrase, so its reference is typically determined by 1) discourse relevance of a certain dog in the context, 2) pointing at a specific dog

- (14b) is truly so non-specific that each dog in the context is an equally likely referent. if a speaker meant to refer to one of the three dogs specifically, they would say *tus aub* instead of *ib tus aub*

- the choice function analysis correctly captures the random referent in the context

---

# Proposal

## Contexts

**How are the referents for each phrase determined in this context?**

- (15a) is a definite phrase, so the ι operator requires it to refer to the full group in the context

- (15b) shows that *ib cov aub* can semantically refer to any atomic or non-atomic entity in the context. **BUT**, because of _antipresupposition_, the options in (15c) are the only pragmatically sound referents in the context for *ib cov aub*

---

# Proposal

### Antipresupposition

**What is it?**

Antipresupposition ***"imposes the condition that the interlocutors not take the truth of a certain proposition for granted"*** (Percus 2006)

- for plural indefinites, the choice function does not select the largest entity, otherwise, ι would be the determiner chosen for the utterance instead of *ib*

- the choice function also does not select an atomic entity, otherwise, the classifier *tus* would have been chosen instead of *cov*

- **thus,** antipresupposition yields the non-singular and non-maximal entities as the only pragmatically sound options when *ib cov aub* is uttered

---

# Proposal

## Indefinites (structures)

---

# Proposal

## Indefinites (composition)

---

# Proposal

## Indefinites (composition)

<img src="./images/ib_cov_aub_composition.png" width="120%" height="auto" />
---

# Conclusion

- analyzing *ib* as a choice function correctly captures how different referents are determined with singular and plural classifiers

- singular indefinite phrases (***ib tus NP***) are highly non-specific and thus can refer to any atomic entity in the context

- plural indefinite phrases (***ib cov NP***) are also non-specific, but semantically can refer to any atomic or non-atomic entity in the context

- along with the concept of antipresupposition, a choice functional analysis correctly predicts that *ib cov NP* can only refer to non-maximal and non-atomic entities in the context

---

# Selected references

Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. Reference to kinds across language. Natural Language Semantics
6:339–405.

Chierchia, Gennaro. 1997. Partitives, Reference to Kinds and Semantic Variation. SALT VII, 73-98.
Cornell University. Ithaca, NY.

Elbourne, Paul D. 2005. On the acquisition of Principle B. Linguistic Inquiry 36:333–366

Jenks, Peter. 2018. Articulated definiteness without articles. Linguistic Inquiry 49:501–536.

Percus, O. 2006. "Antipresuppositions." In A. Ueyama(ed.), Theoretical and Empirical Studies of
Reference and Anaphora: Toward the establishment of generative grammar as an empirical science, Report of the
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), Project No. 15320052, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 52-73.

Winter, Y. 1997. Choice Functions and the Scopal Semantics of Indefinites. Linguistics and Philosophy
20, 399–467. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005354323136

---

# Thank you! Questions? Comments?

### contact: quartz.colvin@rutgers.edu

## *(Cov aub!)*

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