On Morphological compositionality

Abstract

We argue that the properties of indefinite pronouns such as
the quantifiers someone and everything, are derived by the
operations of the grammar and are interpreted compositionally
at the semantic interface. This is not what is generally
assumed in current practice, as indefinite pronouns are often
semantically taken to be unanalyzed expressions
(KARTTUNNEN, 1976; MONTAGUE, 1974; GROENENDIJK;
STOKHOF, 1990). We bring further evidence that semantic
compositionality holds for wh-words in English, e.g., what and
where, and in other languages, as proposed in Di Sciullo (2005).
We attribute the fact that the interpretation of these elements
is derived compositionally to the core compositionality of
morphological domains (DI SCIULLO, 2004). We draw
consequences of our analysis for the properties of the interface
between morphological structure and semantics.