On the Types and the Structure of Partitives

In this paper it is claimed that there is a new type of partitive in Japanese which has never been treated as partitives in Japanese. Included in this type of partitive are Alternative Questions (AltQs) and constructions involving disjunction. I propose that these constructions should be treated uniformly and are best analyzed as partitives related to choice functions. In English also, these constructions are taken to be partitives and moreover, there is previous research which claims that choice functions are involved in their interpretation. My proposal makes it necessary to revise the previously proposed structures of partitives. Further, the status of uti-no ‘out of,’ the item typically used in partitives, is revealed to be problematic