Sul tipo italiano qualche tre chili: impieghi del quantificatore indefinito in unione a numerale

Abstract

Both in many varieties of regional italian and in italo-romance dialects widespread throughout Italy, the indefinite and indeclinable quantifier qualche “some” can be used as an adverb meaning “roughly, approximately”, when followed by cardinal numerals (e.g.: Ho comprato qualche tre chili di mele “I bought about three kilos of apples”). The main purpose of this contribution is to provide an answer to the following issues: 1) why the indefinite quantifier, which as such provides information on approximate quantities, can be found in association with cardinal numerals, i.e. with elements of the language codifying exact quantities; 2) why an intrinsic quantifier (that is, morphologically singular) can be associated with plurals; 3) if – and on what basis – a change of morphosyntactic category is conceivable for It. qualche. Comparison with similar uses attested in French and English will show how the pronoun qualc-uno (Fr. quelqu’un, Eng. some-one) may have triggered the creation of indefinite phrases like “some + N”.