Author: Ponnu Liz Malieckal

Abstract: This paper examines the role of the conditional morpheme enkil in the Malayalam quantifier aar-enkil-um, arguing that enkil functions as a covert subtrigging trigger analogous to the subjunctive mood in Catalan as described by Dayal (2009). Building on the observation that English any is acceptable with necessity modals only when subtrigged by a post-nominal phrasal modifier, we show that aar-enkil-um is grammatical in non-overtly-subtrigged necessity modal contexts because enkil itself provides the subtrigging effect. This enkil-induced subtrigging is, however, strictly modal-specific: unlike overt subtrigging, which rescues aar-um in episodic contexts, the conditional enkil does not produce a subtrigging effect in episodic sentences, and aar-enkil-um remains ungrammatical in episodic contexts even with overt post-nominal modification. This modal-specificity reveals a previously undescribed constraint on covert subtrigging and has implications for the theory of free choice indefinites cross-linguistically.

Keywords: Conditional Morphology; Free Choice Items; Malayalam; Negative Polarity Items; Subtrigging.

Article Info: Received: 06 Feb 2026; Received in revised form: 08 Mar 2026; Accepted: 12 Mar 2026; Available online: 15 Mar 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.112.22