Proportional and conservativity: the view from Turkish

Abstract

Proportional numerals like 70% and two-thirds, which express a relation between two quantities, give rise to distinct interpretations inside different constructions. In The company hired 70% of the women, the cardinality of the women that are hired is compared to the cardinality of all the women (a proportional reading). In The company hired 70% women, on the other hand, the cardinality of the women that are hired is compared to the cardinality of all the hired individuals (a reverse-proportional reading). This paper is concerned with the form-meaning relations associated with proportional measurement constructions and reverse proportional measurement constructions in Turkish. Proportional numerals inside reverse proportional expressions appear to violate a semantic universal known as the Conservativity Constraint. Building on previous research, we propose a Conservativity-compatible analysis for such constructions in Turkish. We claim that these expressions exhibit non-conservativity effects due to the fact that the noun inside them is interpreted only in its vP-internal position. Proportional measurement constructions, on the other hand, undergo DP-movement, as a result of which the noun inside them is interpreted both in the tail and in the head of the movement chain, blocking non-conservativity effects. We show that the analysis developed in this paper for proportional expressions also accounts for the distribution of non-conservative readings of the proportional context-sensitive determiners many and few.