On French 'un même' and Antispecificity

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper, I examine the definiteness problem raised by sentenceinternal même 'same' in French, as in this language (vs. English), même does not only combine with the definite determiner (le même), but also with the indefinite article (un même). Even if le même, like the same, does not behave like typical definite descriptions do, it contrasts with un même with respect to definiteness and distribution: un même is more indefinite than le même in that it does not trigger any presupposition at all; moreover, un même is more restricted in distribution than le même in that it only exhibits sentence-internal readings in antispecific contexts. I hypothesize that both le même and un même are quantifiers over a plural event that has been distributed, but also contain a domain variable: that of un même has to be quantificationally bound while that of le même can also be identified by the context.