On the Emergence of Portuguese FCI qualquer: A Diachronic Perspective

Abstract

Romance free choice items (FCIs) are frequently pointed out as resulting from the grammaticalization of the relative determiner qual ‘which’ and an element derived from a volition verb, such as querer ‘want’. Contrary to other Romance FCIs, Portuguese qualquer ‘any’ remains understudied, therefore motivating the current research. In this article, I investigate the syntax and semantics of qualquer, from a diachronic perspective, based on examples extracted from 13th and 14th century texts. Analysis of contexts of occurrence of qualquer showed that, in Old Portuguese, the elements qual and quer could combine in different configurations, corresponding to different structures. On the one hand, the relative determiner qual could combine with a form of the volition verb in ever free relative clauses. On the other hand, qual and quer were also combined in appositive relative clauses, which seem to be at the core of postnominal qualquer. However, similar to what is argued for Old Spanish, qualquer was also a quantifier-like element, occurring in prenominal position and giving rise to universal interpretations. The different origins of prenominal and postnominal qualquer may help explain the different readings in contemporary data.