Nor Jnl Ling 27.2, 169–195 C  2004 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0332586504001234 Printed in the United Kingdom Round, Erich R. 2004. The subidentificational meanings of English some and Swedish n˚ agon: a comparative analysis of polysemy. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 27.2, 169–195. The subidentificational meanings of English some and Swedish n˚ agon: a comparative analysis of polysemy Erich R. Round English some and Swedish någon have a number of ‘subidentificational’ meanings, as in English some general (or other) has been shot; it was some shooting (or something). This paper reviews those meanings and attempts to determine how many context-invariant meanings are needed in order to account for their full range of meanings in context. By explicitly setting out processes of inference generation within a Gricean framework, it is found that for a large number, only one underlying (i.e. coded) meaning is required, which in context generates inferences such as lack of speaker knowledge, recall or interest in the NP referent, regarding either its type or which entity it is. Nevertheless, not all meanings can be handled in this way and additional coded meanings are required. Two diachronic pathways are discussed via which one coded meaning might extend to another. Some conclusions relevant for future work on indefinites are drawn. Keywords hedge, implicature, indefinites, inference, n˚ agon, polysemy, some, spesumptive, subidentification Erich R. Round, Department of German & Swedish Studies, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia. E-mail: erich@unimelb.edu.au 1. INTRODUCTION In a discussion of ‘modes of substantiation’, Strawson (1974) makes a short reference to a meaning of English some, exemplified in (1), which is described as embodying ‘an acknowledgement or recognition of the fact that the identification supplied, though perhaps the best the speaker can do, might be regarded as inadequate to the circumstances of the case’ (Strawson 1974:111). Warfel (1972) had called this the SPESUMPTIVE meaning of some, a label which will be adopted here. 1 (1) Some general has been shot. (Strawson 1974:110) In terms of form, spesumptive some must be realised with the full vowel /2/ in /s2m/; the reduced form sm (with schwa vowel or syllabic nasal) does not have a spesumptive meaning. Other than this though, spesumptive some need not bear any