Crosslinguistic variation in partitives

As has been highlighted in the literature (see Luraghi & Huumo 2014b: 3–4) the word ‘partitive’ has often been used in reference to different types of linguistic items or constructions without further specification. In recent years, a number of studies have called attention to the different features of items covered by this label. In particular, it has been shown that partitive cases of languages such as Finnish, Estonian and Basque have much in common with partitive genitives known from the Indo-European languages as well as with partitive articles features by some Romance languages, which in their turn parallel partitive determiners, verbal affixes or other clitics from Oceanic languages. This apparently heterogeneous array of different items did not receive a unified treatment in spite of striking similarities and of extensive language-specific studies, partly because the label ‘partitive’ blurred the difference between these items and partitive constructions.