Indeterminate pronouns in Old English (expressions like hwa ‘who/what’ and hwelc ‘which’) permit several interpretations in addition to their use as interrogative pronouns, for example readings as universal or existential quantifiers. They combine with morphological prefixes (ge- ‘and, also’ and a- ‘always, ever’), which change the range of possible interpretations. Old English indeterminate pronouns are shown to contribute a crosslinguistically hitherto unattested pattern of available interpretations. In particular, bare indeterminate pronouns have a universal interpretation and ge-indeterminate pronouns can be both universal and existential. This paper offers an alternative semantic analysis in the spirit of Hamblin (Found Lang 10:41–53, 1973) and Shimoyama (Nat Lang Semant 14:139–173, 2006). A compositional semantics is given for the pronouns and the prefixes, which derives the available readings. The paper ends with a proposal for compositional semantic change relating Old English indeterminate pronouns to their modern descendants.

古英语中的不定代词（如hwa “谁/什么”和hwelc “哪个”等表达方式）除了用作疑问代词外，还允许多种解释，例如读作普遍量词或存在量词。它们与词法前缀（ge - '并且，也'和a - '永远，永远'）相结合，改变了可能解释的范围。古英语不定代词被证明有助于提供一种迄今为止未经证实的跨语言解释模式。特别是，裸不定代词具有普遍解释，而不定代词可以是普遍的和存在的。本文本着 Hamblin (Found Lang 10:41–53, 1973) 和 Shimoyama (Nat Lang Semant 14:139–173, 2006) 的精神提供了另一种语义分析。为代词和前缀给出了组合语义，从而导出可用的读法。本文最后提出了将古英语不定代词与其现代后代联系起来的构成语义变化的提案。