Further Sources of Indefinite Pronouns

Abstract This chapter focuses on diachronic sources of indefinite pronouns that cannot be easily subsumed under grammaticalization. It first considers indefinite pronouns marked by scalar focus particles such as ‘even’ and ‘at least’ before discussing the possibility that the disjunctive conjunction ‘or’ may be used as an indefiniteness marker. It then examines bare interrogative pronouns that are used as indefinites, taking into account strategies of disambiguation and bare interrogatives in Indo-European. It also explains why indefinites tend to be identical to interrogatives and goes on to analyse reduplicated indefinite pronouns. After formulating a number of generalizations, the chapter describes some further diachronic issues, including the change from generic nouns and the numeral ‘one’ into indefinite pronouns, along with the borrowing of indefinite pronouns.