the syntax and semantics of relativization and quantification

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position, or is kay more like English ‘(there) is’, with perhaps a null expletive in
subject position. In this section I will argue in favor of the null expletive analysis.
I begin by looking at number agreement in CQ existentials, mentioned briefly
in the previous section. Recall that the verb kay appears in third singular form
in existentials such as (5.3), although the associate (such as llama-kuna ‘llamas’ in
that example) is a plural. In fact, plural marking in Quechua is often optional and
apparently governed by rather complex pragmatic considerations . However, if the
verb in (5.3) were in unmarked agreement with the verb kay, we would expect the
verb to be at least optionally plural marked. In fact, the addition of the plural
marker on kay changes the meaning of the sentence. 7
7 I have seen one example which challenges this generalization. As mentioned
above, I will analyze possessive sentences as a special case of existentials in CQ. Anticipating
this analysis, consider now the following example from a Cuzco Quechua
textbook [Morató-Peña & Morató-Lara 1995], the following sentence appears twice,
once with and once without plural marking on the verb.
(i) ¿Wawqe-pana-yki-kuna ka-sqa-∅-(ku)-chu?
brother-sister-2pl-pl be-past.rep-3(sg)-(pl)-Q
‘Did you have siblings?’
I have checked this sentence with speakers of Cuzco Quechua who have verified
that it is grammatical (although perhaps better without plural agreement). However,
this fact appears to be due to a special property of the “reportative” (Cusihuamán
[1976/2000]) suffix -sqa, since the same speakers do not accept any plural
marking on the present tense existential. This can be seen in the following further
examples, which show as we expect that plural agreement on the verb is not possible
in an existential sentence in which the verb does not appear with the reportative
suffix -sqa.
(ii) ¿Wawqi-yki-kuna ka-n-ku?
brother-2pl-pl be-3-pl
‘Are they your brothers?’
*’Do you have brothers?’
(iii) ¿Wawqi-yki-kuna ka-n-chu?
brother-2sg-pl be-3sg-q
‘Do you have brothers?’
Note that in (ii), which shows plural agreement on the verb, the possessive sentence
reading is not available, as it was above in (i) and also in (iii). I currently do
not know why -sqa affects the plural marking on the verb in this way, but leave this