On indefinite quantification in Alfonso X’s Corpus

Alfonso X’s corpus constitutes an invaluable source for studies on dialectal variation in the 13th century. Within the variation phenomena observed, there exists a particular marking pattern between a quantifier and the quantified noun. Along with the alternatives recognized in current Spanish varieties (agreement: muchas personas ‘many people’/presence of de ‘of’: una cantidad de personas ‘a lot of people’), in Alfonso’s corpus it is possible to identify a mixed structure which combines agreement with marking by means of de ‘of’: muchos de árvoles (General Estoria I). The goal of this paper is to analyze this kind of sequences in order to define their semantic values (partitivity or indefinite quantification), distribution and productivity.