On the Semantics of kakkak and each

Abstract

This paper investigates the semantic properties of the distributivity marker constructions including kakkak in Korean and each in English and proposes a compositional semantic analysis. Even though kakkak and each have been generally assumed as similar items, we find it is not the case that all their properties are shared. This paper also suggests based on the observed properties that kakkak should be distinguished from other floating quantifiers of the language. To account for the possible interpretations, we propose a lexical analysis, rather than a structural analysis, implementing the distributional force in its lexical denotation of the distributivity marker, thereby causing distribution over the members of the set denoted by the associated argument. With this lexical analysis, we can successfully account for the possible interpretations, deriving them in a compositional way.