Bare Nominals in Brazilian Portuguese: more on the DP/NP analysis

Abstract

In this paper we claim that Bare Nominals in Brazilian Portuguese come in two shapes. Real BNs, by which we mean bare count nouns not specified for number and definiteness, correspond to NPs that can only occur as objects of a reduced class of predicates (namely, those that express a HAVE-relation) and are interpreted as property-type expressions. Other BNs can be definite and, although not morphophonologically specified for number, they are DPs with null Determiners morphosyntactically specified for Number features and are interpreted as entity-type expressions. We base our analysis on the distribution and meaning of BNs, by comparing BrP with other Romance languages, mainly (Old and Modern) French on the one hand, and Spanish and Catalan on the other.

On the Syntax of Number in Romance

“…Similarly, in Brazilian Portuguese partial agreement is observed in sequences that include a postnominal adjective, such as the ones illustrated in (19) (adapted from Cyrino & Espinal 2015b: 478, ex. (9)).…”

“…Brazilian Portuguese is well known among Romance languages for showing sociolinguistic variation within the DP (Scherre , Scherre & Naro , Lopes , among many others). This is illustrated in the examples in (10) and (11), all of them meaning ‘Brazilians are hardworking’ (Müller , Cyrino & Espinal 2015b).…”

“…What is interesting to observe is that the subject may have an overt or a covert D, plural marking may be instantiated in the two constituents (D and N) of the subject or only on the D, but not on the N alone (10e) if the article is present, and plural agreement may be optionally instantiated on the VP. Accordingly, Brazilian Portuguese has been analyzed as a DP language for which a null D may be postulated (Munn & Schmitt ), and for which plural marking is syntactically encoded on D (Cyrino & Espinal 2015b).…”

“…By contrast, a set of studies (Delfitto & Schrotten , Bouchard , Dobrovie‐Sorin , Cyrino & Espinal 2015b, a.o.) have pointed out the fact that other Romance languages, Brazilian Portuguese and French in particular, encode Number on the D(eterminer) rather than on the N(oun).…”

The definite article in Romance expletives and long weak definites

“…4 See Munn and Schmitt (2005) for the hypothesis of a null D(eterminer) in BrP. Cyrino and Espinal (2015),…”