A protocol for the Syntax of ‘Other’ in Indefinite Nominal Expressions across Romance Languages

In Romance languages “other” derives from the Vulgar Latin word alteru(m) (from alter) “another (different) among two/many”: (1) a. o/ (um) outro amigo Portuguese b. el/ Ø otro amigo Spanish c. l’/Un altre amic Catalan d. l’/Un autre ami French e. l’/Un altro amico Italian f. celălalt / (Un) alt prieten Roumanian “the other/another friend” and its contribution to the meaning of the noun phrase is related to the context. A noun phrase modified by “other” denotes an entity “which is either different from or additional to some other entity already mentioned or known about. In the (recent) literature this lexical items is analyzed either as an adjective with functional properties that is merged in a high position inside the extended projection of the noun –it is preceded by a definite or indefinite determiner and it precedes all the other prenominal adjective classes– or as a determiner in indefinite contexts –it appears in a very high position and goes into complementary distribution with the indefinite article (Spanish, (1b))–. In this chapter we will study, in a comparative perspective, the syntactic and interpretive behavior of “other” in Romance languages represented in (1). We will argue that this lexical item has two different statuses: it is a quantifier, and not a determiner, and also an adjective, as it occurs with many of existential quantifiers. Its status as a quantifier can be found in indefinite contexts (outro amigo (port.); otro amigo (sp.); alt prieten (roum.) “another friend”). In fact, in all these languages it can introduce a subject singular nominal expression (outro homem comprou o jornal (port.); otro hombre compró el periódico (sp.) “another man bought the newspaper”), can appear as complement of the existential verb (havia outro/outros (port.); había outro/otros (sp.)) and can appear in an object position with the elliptical noun (comprou outro (port.)/ compró otro (sp.) “he/she bought another”). Moreover, in those Romance languages in which “other” must be preceded by the indefinite article, the elliptical nouns triggers the obligatory presence of the partitive clitic ne/en: (2) a. M’estimo més llegir-ne una altra vs. *En vaig veure un últimi Catalan b. Je préfère en lire un autre *J'en ai vu un dernier French c. Preferisco leggerne un’altra *Ne ho visto un ultimo Italian “I prefer to read another” “*I saw a last” The contrasts in (2), together with other syntactic behavior that we will discuss in the paper show that the indefinite article and “other” form a complex quantifier. We will extend this proposal also in those cases in which “other” combines either with a cardinal “other two” or with an existential (weak) quantifier “many/few other(s)”. The results of these combination show a large overlap across Romance with interesting parametrization which lead us to propose that the complex quantifiers must be listed as such in the lexicon of individual languages, while the hierarchy of Q > Det > Adj is common across Romance (and indeed universal). In those languages such as Italian, in which, for example, altro “other” can precede or follow the cardinal (altri due N/ due altri N “two other N”), the complex quantifier is represented by the order “other > Cardinal” in the inverse order “other” should be analysed as an adjective, as the following contrasts show: (3) a. Preferisco leggerne altre due b. *Preferisco leggerne due altre “I prefer to read two others” The status of “other” as an adjective can be detected in the definite domain. “Other” behaves as an adjective when it appears preceded by the definite article (o outro amigo (port.); el otro amigo (sp.); l’altre amic (cat.); l’autre ami (fr.); l’altro amico (it.); celălalt prieten (roum.).