Strategies of Quantification in Hausa (Chadic)

Abstract This chapter discusses some interesting properties of the adnominal quantificational system in the Chadic language Hausa. Its main objective is to introduce new empirical data into the discussion of quantification from a cross‐linguistic semantic perspective. Special attention is paid to (i) differences in the structural realization of weak (= modifying) and strong (= inherent) quantifying expressions; and (ii) the formation of (universal) quantifiers from a wh‐element and a disjunction marker (wh‐DISJ‐quantifiers), and the semantic interpretation of these quantifiers. In this chapter, I show that weak and strong quantifying expressions differ in their syntactic distribution, pointing at a fundamental semantic difference between both kinds of expressions. Wh‐DISJ‐quantifiers in Hausa are interesting in two respects: First, they appear to receive different interpretations (universal, free choice, existential) in different syntactic contexts. These different interpretations are argued to follow from a basic universal reading. Second, the interpretation of wh‐DISJ‐quantifiers varies across languages. They are interpreted with universal force in Hausa, but with existential force in Japanese and Malayalam. A cross‐linguistically unified analysis of wh‐DISJ‐quantifiers is shown to be possible in principle. At the same time, the possibility that wh‐DISJ‐quantifiers are interpreted by different interpretative mechanisms in different languages is not altogether excluded.