The role of the particle -oo in wh-exclamatives in Telugu and Kannada

Abstract

A non-degree approach like d’Avis (2002) doesn’t work for degree readings of wh-exclamatives since it is based on a Groenendijk and Stokhof (1984) denotation of questions. The Widening account of Zannutini and Portner (2003) doesn’t work for individual/event read- ings of wh-exclamatives because of a Karttunen (1977) denotation of questions. Degree deno- tation approaches to wh-exclamatives can’t explain the variability either. We propose a solution such that the widening account works if we start with Hamblin alternatives. Evidence for the widening mechanism comes from wh-exclamatives in Telugu/Kannada –the particle -oo which imposes a join requirement on the semantic content of its immediate context (Szabolcsi 2015). We propose that the semantic/pragmatic mechanism of wh-exclamatives involves the following three steps –Generating alternatives: wh-focus or other focus mechanisms; Scale to order the alternatives: lexical degree scale/degree morpheme or a likelihood scale; Widening & Dynamic update: Widening of domain from ES to D2 and Add {p} to FCspkr .