University of Groningen Experimental investigations into the semantics of distributive marking Bosnić, Ana

University of Groningen

Experimental investigations into the semantics of distributive marking

Bosnić, Ana

DOI:

10.33612/diss.171644158

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Bosnić, A. (2021). Experimental investigations into the semantics of distributive marking: Data from Serbian, Korean and Dutch. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.171644158

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Summary

The main focus of this thesis is on different interpretations of distributive marking in Serbian, Korean, and Dutch, and on experimentally teasing apart the predictions of opposite semantic analyses proposed for a subset of distributive markers in Serbian and Korean.

Our understanding of distributive markers across languages, although researched thoroughly, is still far from complete. Cross-linguistically, the ways in which distributive readings can be conveyed vary, and are a fertile ground for comparative theoretical and experimental research. For example, some languages have distributive markers that appear to be very similar to universal distributive quantifiers such as every and

each, but turn out to have additional distributive interpretations, often

called event-distributive interpretations. In addition, they have different morpho-syntactic properties than universal distributive quantifiers – they mark the distributive share in a sentence, and are often referred to as

distributive share markers.

Broadly speaking, the distributive markers in question create a relation-ship between two arguments in a sentence – the so-called distributive key (DistKey) argument and the distributive share (DistShare) argument. While there is an abundance of experimental evidence on universal distributive quantifiers (also called distributive key (DistKey) markers), especially with children (but also with adults), experimental studies of DistShare markers remain scarce. This thesis contributes to the much needed experimental data on the adult interpretation of DistShare markers in Serbian and Korean, as well as acquisition data comparing languages with (i.e. Serbian) and without (i.e. Dutch) DistShare markers. The studies conducted here thus complement different theoretical accounts on DistShare markers developed over the years and highlight the importance of doing experi-mental investigations on the different semantic properties of these markers. The DistKey/DistShare terminology is (partially) adopted from Choe (1987) and Gil (1995). In a nutshell, the DistKey argument is the argument that is being distributed over (similar to the restrictor of a quantifier), while the DistShare argument is the argument that is being distributed (similar to the nuclear scope of a quantifier). Distributive markers are syntactically attached to the DistShare argument, hence the name. This property makes these markers (at least syntactically) different from those that attach to the DistKey argument. Thus, this particular terminology serves as the most straight-forward typological and morpho-syntactic distinction between two major types of distributive markers.

Let us first illustrate this phenomenon with an example from English and Serbian in (1):

(1) a. Each child is holding a present. – English each.distr child.sg aux holding a present.sg

S

children.nom hold.pl DISTR one present.acc ‘The children are holding (distributively) one present.’

Here, the distributive quantifier each syntactically attaches to the ar-gument that is being distributed over (i.e., child). On the other hand, the distributive marker po in Serbian attaches to the argument that is being distributed (i.e., presents). Furthermore, there are semantic differences between these two sentences. Apart from a shared reading in which there is one present for each individual child (a.k.a. individual-distributive reading), the example from Serbian also yields event-distributive readings, in which the DistShare argument can be distributed over spatial locations or tempo-ral units (e.g., there could be sevetempo-ral groups of children in different places holding one present together). It is also noteworthy that throughout the thesis, we exclusively use the term distributive share (DistShare) markers, as it is the most appropriate term that specifically highlights the typological and morpho-syntactic properties of these markers we are interested in.

This thesis is comprised of six chapters (including the Introduction and Conclusion), three of which are in the form of independent research articles, each dealing with a specific research question. The chapters range from act-out tasks in a language development study and experimental studies developed to test adult interpretations of sentences with DistShare markers, to a discussion of the theoretical implications of our experimental results and establishing ground for further research. The book is organized as follows:

Chapter 2 presents data from a child language study done in Serbian and Dutch. The purpose of this study was to test how the individual-distributive readings differ between languages with and without DistShare markers. In this study we used an act-out task that could give more information about children’s reasoning about the possible interpretations of the sentences in question. We elicited answers from children from ages 7-9 to determine their comprehension of distributively marked sentences and sentences with bare numerals, as well as their performance in understanding distributive readings. Apart from distributively unmarked sentences, for Serbian, we used sentences with either a distributive universal quantifier svaki, or with a DistShare marker po, while for Dutch we only used sentences with a distributive universal quantifier elke. The findings show that Serbian children acquire po considerably later than the quantifier svaki – around the ages of 9 or 10. In addition, they also lag behind fully understanding the universal quantifier svaki in comparison with their Dutch peers and their understanding of elke (which is already mastered around the age of 6). By doing an act-out task, we also caught a glimpse of children’s reasoning about distributivity and a possible learning trajectory going from preferring distributive interpretations for unmarked sentences to understanding distributive markers. This was shown by revealing that there is an intermediate response (the cumulative answer) between collective and distributive answers. Furthermore, we observed pragmatic differences

between Dutch and Serbian response patterns – Dutch adults seem to be influenced by pragmatic reasons (e.g the type of verbs, or naturalness of the statements) when giving their responses for numerically marked sentences and show a wider variety of possible responses, while Serbian adults do not seem to be influenced by pragmatic factors and they rigidly follow the lexical marking. Lastly, we hypothesized that there is a third distributive competitor in Serbian (i.e., svaki+po that may be equivalent to (binominal)

each) that potentially affects the acquisition of the distributive markers svaki and po independently. These results are relevant when looking at

the range of interpretations of po, including different meanings of po (e.g., as a preposition or a verbal prefix), that may hinder the very late acquisition of po. 

The experiments in Chapter 3 focused on testing whether DistShare markers, such as po in Serbian and -ssik in Korean, should be analyzed in terms of universal quantification over events (Zimmermann 2002b, Balusu 2006) or in terms of event plurality markers (pluractionals) (Cable 2014, Knežević 2015). The latter means that they simply require plurality of events rather than additional universal properties of quantifiers, such as an exhausted DistKey. The experiments were all picture verification tasks that we used to establish the baseline interpretations of DistShare markers in Serbian and Korean independently of the theoretical claims we made on the basis of the data. 

We tested intransitive sentences in which po and -ssik attached to the only available argument – the subject (see (2)):

(2) a. Pleš-e [po jedan majmun]. -Serbian

dance distr one monkey.nom

b. [Wenswungi-ka han-mali-ssik] chwum-ul chwu-koiss-ta. -Korean monkey.nom one.clf.distr dance.acc dance.prog.dec c. ‘distr one monkey is dancing (at different locations/each location).’ We took the core property that distinguishes universal quantifiers from event plurality markers to be the exhaustivity requirement of the DistKey argument. We pioneered an experimental design to test whether the DistKey argument needs to be exhausted or not, which, in case of intran-sitive sentences, is a covert spatio/temporal argument. We encouraged interpretations with a spatial argument as the DistKey by making the spatial arguments explicit in the pictures by showing cages and caves in a zoo. These cages/caves contained triplets of animals (as shown in Figure 3, Chapter 3). Our hypothesis was the following: if the spatial arguments must be exhausted by one-monkey-dancing events then there is evidence that DistShare markers should be analyzed as universal quantifiers over events. If not, then it is only a matter of verbal/event plurality – as long as there are at least two events of one-monkey-dancing, the sentence is true under all conditions.

We actually found an exhaustivity requirement over non-atomic partici-pants (groups of participartici-pants/monkeys) and crucially not over designated

S

children.nom hold.pl DISTR one present.acc ‘The children are holding (distributively) one present.’

Here, the distributive quantifier each syntactically attaches to the ar-gument that is being distributed over (i.e., child). On the other hand, the distributive marker po in Serbian attaches to the argument that is being distributed (i.e., presents). Furthermore, there are semantic differences between these two sentences. Apart from a shared reading in which there is one present for each individual child (a.k.a. individual-distributive reading), the example from Serbian also yields event-distributive readings, in which the DistShare argument can be distributed over spatial locations or tempo-ral units (e.g., there could be sevetempo-ral groups of children in different places holding one present together). It is also noteworthy that throughout the thesis, we exclusively use the term distributive share (DistShare) markers, as it is the most appropriate term that specifically highlights the typological and morpho-syntactic properties of these markers we are interested in.

This thesis is comprised of six chapters (including the Introduction and Conclusion), three of which are in the form of independent research articles, each dealing with a specific research question. The chapters range from act-out tasks in a language development study and experimental studies developed to test adult interpretations of sentences with DistShare markers, to a discussion of the theoretical implications of our experimental results and establishing ground for further research. The book is organized as follows:

Chapter 2 presents data from a child language study done in Serbian and Dutch. The purpose of this study was to test how the individual-distributive readings differ between languages with and without DistShare markers. In this study we used an act-out task that could give more information about children’s reasoning about the possible interpretations of the sentences in question. We elicited answers from children from ages 7-9 to determine their comprehension of distributively marked sentences and sentences with bare numerals, as well as their performance in understanding distributive readings. Apart from distributively unmarked sentences, for Serbian, we used sentences with either a distributive universal quantifier svaki, or with a DistShare marker po, while for Dutch we only used sentences with a distributive universal quantifier elke. The findings show that Serbian children acquire po considerably later than the quantifier svaki – around the ages of 9 or 10. In addition, they also lag behind fully understanding the universal quantifier svaki in comparison with their Dutch peers and their understanding of elke (which is already mastered around the age of 6). By doing an act-out task, we also caught a glimpse of children’s reasoning about distributivity and a possible learning trajectory going from preferring distributive interpretations for unmarked sentences to understanding distributive markers. This was shown by revealing that there is an intermediate response (the cumulative answer) between collective and distributive answers. Furthermore, we observed pragmatic differences

between Dutch and Serbian response patterns – Dutch adults seem to be influenced by pragmatic reasons (e.g the type of verbs, or naturalness of the statements) when giving their responses for numerically marked sentences and show a wider variety of possible responses, while Serbian adults do not seem to be influenced by pragmatic factors and they rigidly follow the lexical marking. Lastly, we hypothesized that there is a third distributive competitor in Serbian (i.e., svaki+po that may be equivalent to (binominal)

each) that potentially affects the acquisition of the distributive markers svaki and po independently. These results are relevant when looking at

the range of interpretations of po, including different meanings of po (e.g., as a preposition or a verbal prefix), that may hinder the very late acquisition of po. 

The experiments in Chapter 3 focused on testing whether DistShare markers, such as po in Serbian and -ssik in Korean, should be analyzed in terms of universal quantification over events (Zimmermann 2002b, Balusu 2006) or in terms of event plurality markers (pluractionals) (Cable 2014, Knežević 2015). The latter means that they simply require plurality of events rather than additional universal properties of quantifiers, such as an exhausted DistKey. The experiments were all picture verification tasks that we used to establish the baseline interpretations of DistShare markers in Serbian and Korean independently of the theoretical claims we made on the basis of the data. 

We tested intransitive sentences in which po and -ssik attached to the only available argument – the subject (see (2)):

(2) a. Pleš-e [po jedan majmun]. -Serbian

dance distr one monkey.nom

b. [Wenswungi-ka han-mali-ssik] chwum-ul chwu-koiss-ta. -Korean monkey.nom one.clf.distr dance.acc dance.prog.dec c. ‘distr one monkey is dancing (at different locations/each location).’ We took the core property that distinguishes universal quantifiers from event plurality markers to be the exhaustivity requirement of the DistKey argument. We pioneered an experimental design to test whether the DistKey argument needs to be exhausted or not, which, in case of intran-sitive sentences, is a covert spatio/temporal argument. We encouraged interpretations with a spatial argument as the DistKey by making the spatial arguments explicit in the pictures by showing cages and caves in a zoo. These cages/caves contained triplets of animals (as shown in Figure 3, Chapter 3). Our hypothesis was the following: if the spatial arguments must be exhausted by one-monkey-dancing events then there is evidence that DistShare markers should be analyzed as universal quantifiers over events. If not, then it is only a matter of verbal/event plurality – as long as there are at least two events of one-monkey-dancing, the sentence is true under all conditions.

We actually found an exhaustivity requirement over non-atomic partici-pants (groups of participartici-pants/monkeys) and crucially not over designated

S

visual stimuli (cages, triplets of monkeys in the cages and triplets of mon-keys), triplets of monkeys seemed to be the relevant DistKey. We take this conclusion to argue in favor of a universal quantification analysis by adapting Zimmermann’s (2002b) analysis of DistShare markers. We thus assume that DistShare markers can distribute over entities that are non-atomic, such as time and space, as well as entities that are bigger than atoms – that is, groups/pluralities of atomic individuals. This is further reflected in the parameter settings for distributivity operators, granularity and dimension, as proposed by Champollion (2016b). Specifically, the granularity parameter can be set to distribute over atoms (as it is the case with quantifiers such as each) and over non-atomic (non-count) dimensions such as time or space (and now non-atomic pluralities).

Chapter 4 was a logical next step for further testing DistShare markers, and it presents a three-part study designed to test the predictions put forth in Chapter 3 using transitive sentences with the DistShare marker

po attached to the object argument:

(3) Majmun-i drž-e po jedan kišobran. -Serbian monkey.pl.nom hold.prs.3pl distr one umbrella.acc ‘Monkeys are holding distr one umbrella.’

This is not a trivial question because, unlike in intransitive sentences where there is a single overt argument, transitive sentences have two, and the unmarked plural argument becomes an overt, linguistic competitor for the implicit DistKey. Specifically, we wanted to examine whether (and to what degree) the predictions hold in transitive cases. We conducted three experiments (picture verification tasks) and tested Serbian adult speakers to establish the baselines about individual-distributive and event-distributive readings. However, we unexpectedly found evidence of two populations of speakers – one that seems to interpret po as a universal quantifier (over events) and the other that seems to interpret it as a pluractional marker, which we refer to as “non-exhaustive po”, since it did not show exhaustivity requirements. We close this chapter by speculating that po may be undergoing a semantic change where, for some speakers, po has lost its universal quantificational force. 

In our three experiments, the subject of the sentence was an overt plurality that could serve as a potential DistKey over which DistShare argument is distributed. In the first two experiments, we tested the exhaustivity requirements of the DistKey in six possible conditions (pictures) that were also based on our conclusions from Chapter 3, i.e., that non-atomic individuals could serve as the DistKey that needs to be exhausted (e.g., for the test sentence Monkeys are holding po one umbrella; see Chapter 4, section 3 for details on the new experimental conditions). The results from these experiments suggest there may be two populations of speakers, but it was unclear whether the observed effects are coming from the exhaustivity requirements of the marker or maximality effects

of the plural definites. The third experiment was designed to test for homogeneity effects (building on Križ & Chemla 2015) across three types of negative transitive sentences: with the DistShare marker po, or with either the DistKey quantifier svaki (every) or a definite plural in subject position. Most importantly, we proposed that testing homogeneity effects is a good diagnostic test to tease apart exhaustivity requirements of universal quantifiers and maximality effects of definite (bare) plurals. Namely, this test has clear and distinct predictions for universal quantifiers and for definite plurals which were ultimately borne out by the claims from the first two experiments. Thus, the experiments revealed and then confirmed there are two populations of speakers – one that requires an exhaustivity requirement of the DistKey and one that does not. In other words, the first population seemingly interprets DistShare markers as universal distributive quantifiers over events, as initially predicted, and the second population interprets them (possibly) as pluractional markers. As a concluding remark, we speculate that po, as a universal quantifier, may be undergoing semantic weakening for some speakers, which then explains the coexistence two populations. 

Chapter 5 is a further theoretical analysis of the results we have found in Chapter 4, specifically. The focus of the chapter is on how to semanti-cally analyze po for the subset of the population that does not treat po in transitive contexts as a universal quantifier, and thus does not require an exhausted DistKey. Specifically, we explored two possible accounts that do not analyze these markers as universal quantifiers – first we present the account we covered in earlier chapters, proposed by Knežević (2015) for the marker po, where she argues that po is a marker of event plurality, similar to pluractionals. The essence of Knežević’s proposal is that the only requirement needed for a sentence with po to be felicitous is to have at least two events consisting of a po-marked argument, distributed over spatio-temporal units. Crucially, no universal quantificational force is responsible for the interpretations of po sentences. The second proposal analyzes DistShare markers as group-forming devices, which also makes no use of universal quantification, but crucially, it also does not require a plurality of events. This is an account proposed by McKercher and Kim (1999), based on Gil’s (1990) NP-internal distributive readings, in which the marker distributes over the head noun it modifies and results in a plurality of these entities, but not in a plurality of events (i.e., the events are not distributed). The two accounts differ in the fact that the latter account allows scenarios that involve a single event, in which distributivity only happens within the DP/NP that the marker attaches to and has no impact on the plurality of events. As expected, the event plurality account cannot compute these readings. 

We contribute to this argumentation by first discussing different cri-teria for individuating and counting events (e.g., Donazzan & Müller 2015, Lasersohn 1995 and Tunstall 1998) in order to directly apply these criteria to the counterexamples of the group-forming story (e.g., John is

S

visual stimuli (cages, triplets of monkeys in the cages and triplets of mon-keys), triplets of monkeys seemed to be the relevant DistKey. We take this conclusion to argue in favor of a universal quantification analysis by adapting Zimmermann’s (2002b) analysis of DistShare markers. We thus assume that DistShare markers can distribute over entities that are non-atomic, such as time and space, as well as entities that are bigger than atoms – that is, groups/pluralities of atomic individuals. This is further reflected in the parameter settings for distributivity operators, granularity and dimension, as proposed by Champollion (2016b). Specifically, the granularity parameter can be set to distribute over atoms (as it is the case with quantifiers such as each) and over non-atomic (non-count) dimensions such as time or space (and now non-atomic pluralities).

Chapter 4 was a logical next step for further testing DistShare markers, and it presents a three-part study designed to test the predictions put forth in Chapter 3 using transitive sentences with the DistShare marker

po attached to the object argument:

(3) Majmun-i drž-e po jedan kišobran. -Serbian monkey.pl.nom hold.prs.3pl distr one umbrella.acc ‘Monkeys are holding distr one umbrella.’

This is not a trivial question because, unlike in intransitive sentences where there is a single overt argument, transitive sentences have two, and the unmarked plural argument becomes an overt, linguistic competitor for the implicit DistKey. Specifically, we wanted to examine whether (and to what degree) the predictions hold in transitive cases. We conducted three experiments (picture verification tasks) and tested Serbian adult speakers to establish the baselines about individual-distributive and event-distributive readings. However, we unexpectedly found evidence of two populations of speakers – one that seems to interpret po as a universal quantifier (over events) and the other that seems to interpret it as a pluractional marker, which we refer to as “non-exhaustive po”, since it did not show exhaustivity requirements. We close this chapter by speculating that po may be undergoing a semantic change where, for some speakers, po has lost its universal quantificational force. 

In our three experiments, the subject of the sentence was an overt plurality that could serve as a potential DistKey over which DistShare argument is distributed. In the first two experiments, we tested the exhaustivity requirements of the DistKey in six possible conditions (pictures) that were also based on our conclusions from Chapter 3, i.e., that non-atomic individuals could serve as the DistKey that needs to be exhausted (e.g., for the test sentence Monkeys are holding po one umbrella; see Chapter 4, section 3 for details on the new experimental conditions). The results from these experiments suggest there may be two populations

of speakers, but it was unclear whether the observed effects are coming from the exhaustivity requirements of the marker or maximality effects

of the plural definites. The third experiment was designed to test for homogeneity effects (building on Križ & Chemla 2015) across three types of negative transitive sentences: with the DistShare marker po, or with either the DistKey quantifier svaki (every) or a definite plural in subject position. Most importantly, we proposed that testing homogeneity effects is a good diagnostic test to tease apart exhaustivity requirements of universal quantifiers and maximality effects of definite (bare) plurals. Namely, this test has clear and distinct predictions for universal quantifiers and for definite plurals which were ultimately borne out by the claims from the first two experiments. Thus, the experiments revealed and then confirmed there are two populations of speakers – one that requires an exhaustivity requirement of the DistKey and one that does not. In other words, the first population seemingly interprets DistShare markers as universal distributive quantifiers over events, as initially predicted, and the second population interprets them (possibly) as pluractional markers. As a concluding remark, we speculate that po, as a universal quantifier, may be undergoing semantic weakening for some speakers, which then explains the coexistence two populations. 

Chapter 5 is a further theoretical analysis of the results we have found in Chapter 4, specifically. The focus of the chapter is on how to semanti-cally analyze po for the subset of the population that does not treat po in transitive contexts as a universal quantifier, and thus does not require an exhausted DistKey. Specifically, we explored two possible accounts that do not analyze these markers as universal quantifiers – first we present the account we covered in earlier chapters, proposed by Knežević (2015) for the marker po, where she argues that po is a marker of event plurality, similar to pluractionals. The essence of Knežević’s proposal is that the only requirement needed for a sentence with po to be felicitous is to have at least two events consisting of a po-marked argument, distributed over spatio-temporal units. Crucially, no universal quantificational force is responsible for the interpretations of po sentences. The second proposal analyzes DistShare markers as group-forming devices, which also makes no use of universal quantification, but crucially, it also does not require a plurality of events. This is an account proposed by McKercher and Kim (1999), based on Gil’s (1990) NP-internal distributive readings, in which the marker distributes over the head noun it modifies and results in a plurality of these entities, but not in a plurality of events (i.e., the events are not distributed). The two accounts differ in the fact that the latter account allows scenarios that involve a single event, in which distributivity only happens within the DP/NP that the marker attaches to and has no impact on the plurality of events. As expected, the event plurality account cannot compute these readings. 

We contribute to this argumentation by first discussing different cri-teria for individuating and counting events (e.g., Donazzan & Müller 2015, Lasersohn 1995 and Tunstall 1998) in order to directly apply these criteria to the counterexamples of the group-forming story (e.g., John is

S

instrument (the scales in this example), which is not predicted by this proposal. Furthermore, we introduce our own crucial borderline example to demonstrate that what is (seemingly) a single event scenario should actually be considered as involving multiple events after applying the differentiation criteria to count the events. To illustrate, we showed that the sentence with a singular subject argument that is engaging in a single event of pulling three carts each with three suitcases (the sentence being:

John is pulling po three suitcases) involves three subevents, differentiated

by the three carts with three suitcases along the spatial dimension. That is, these three subevents do not share the same spatial trace, but they do share the individual/agent dimension and the temporal dimension. We claim that if there is at least one dimension over which the events are not overlapping, this counts as a minimal differentiation between these events and they should be counted as separate (sub)events. In conclusion, we argue in favor of the pluractional analysis of non-exhaustive po by showing that we are indeed dealing with a plurality of events in all these cases, and not just plurality of individuals/groups.

The thesis is concluded and summarized in Chapter 6 with an additional focus on further research and open questions that arose during different stages of the present work. Throughout the thesis we have taken every opportunity to highlight the benefits of experimental analysis as a way to confirm existing theoretical accounts, and bring out topics that offer a fertile ground for further experimental research. We dove into the largely unexplored territory of DistShare markers and got exciting results, but, more importantly, we discovered many paths and possibilities to explore this territory further. We hope that with this research we sparked some interest in carrying out, hand in hand, experimental and theoretical in-vestigation of different aspects of quantification and many implications that may follow.

Samenvatting

De belangrijkste focus van dit proefschrift zijn de verschillende interpreta-ties van distributieve markering in het Servisch, Koreaans en Nederlands en het experimenteel uit elkaar halen van de voorspellingen van tegengestelde semantische analyses die zijn voorgesteld voor een subset van distributieve markeerders in het Servisch en Koreaans.

Hoewel ze reeds grondig onderzocht zijn, is ons begrip van distributieve markeerders in verschillende talen nog verre van volledig. Cross-linguïs-tisch gezien variëren de manieren waarop distributieve lezingen kunnen worden uitgedrukt en dit maakt ze een vruchtbare bodem voor vergelijkend theoretisch en experimenteel onderzoek. Sommige talen hebben bijvoor-beeld distributieve markeerders die erg lijken op universele distributieve kwantoren zoals every en each, maar die aanvullende distributieve inter-pretaties blijken te hebben, vaak event-distributieve interinter-pretaties genoemd. Bovendien hebben ze andere morfo-syntactische eigenschappen dan uni-versele distributieve kwantoren — ze markeren het te distribueren argument in een zin en worden vaak distributive share markeerders genoemd.

In grote lijnen creëren de betreffende distributieve markeerders een verband tussen twee argumenten in een zin - het zogenaamde distributive

key (DistKey)-argument en het distributive share (DistShare)-argument. Er

bestaat een rijkdom aan experimenteel bewijs over universele distributieve kwantoren (ook wel distributive key (DistKey) markeerders genoemd), vooral bij kinderen (maar ook bij volwassenen). Desalniettemin blijven experimentele studies naar DistShare-markeerders schaars. Dit proef-schrift draagt bij aan de noodzakelijke experimentele gegevens over de interpretatie van DistShare-markeerders in het Servisch en Koreaans door volwassenen, evenals aan verwervingsdata waarin talen worden vergeleken met DistShare-markeerders (d.w.z. Servisch) en zonder (d.w.z. Nederlands). De uitgevoerde onderzoeken vormen dus een aanvulling op verschillende theoretische modellen van DistShare-markeerders die in de loop der jaren zijn ontwikkeld en benadrukken tevens het belang van experimenteel onderzoek naar de verschillende semantische eigenschappen van deze markeerders.

De DistKey/DistShare-terminologie is (gedeeltelijk) overgenomen van Choe (1987) en Gil (1995). In een notendop, het DistKey-argument is het argument waarover gedistribueerd wordt (vergelijkbaar met het do-mein (restrictor) van een kwantor), terwijl het DistShare-argument het argument is dat wordt gedistribueerd (vergelijkbaar met het bereik van een kwantor). Distributieve markeerders zijn syntactisch verbonden met het DistShare-argument, vanwaar de naam. Deze eigenschap maakt deze markeerders (tenminste syntactisch) anders dan markeerders die aan het DistKey-argument zijn verbonden. Deze specifieke terminologie duidt dus op het simpelste typologische en morfo-syntactische onderscheid tussen twee hoofdtypen distributieve markeerders.

Laten we dit fenomeen eerst illustreren met een voorbeeld uit het Engels en Servisch in (1):