Bare Plurals and the Number Affix in Dp

Delfitto, Denis; Schroten, Jan

doi:10.1515/prbs.1991.3.2.155

Cited by 84 publications

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“…A first version of the hypothesis in (15) was posed for French by Bouchard (1998Bouchard ( , 2002, who claimed that this language encodes semantic number on D, whereas English encodes it on N. 14 Delfitto and Schroten (1991) and Bouchard propose that there are languages in which Number is marked on the N (like English) and other languages in which Number is marked on the D (like French). Bouchard (2002) argues for this distinction based on the following correlations: (a) number is audibly marked on D in French (the −s plural is not pronounced in the nouns); (b) [V+N] compounds function as a compound N in French whose head is the V and, because of that, number may not appear in the compound but only on D (cf.…”

Section: Definite Descriptions and Bns In Brpmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cyrino

Espinal

2014

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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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.

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Section: Definite Descriptions and Bns In Brpmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Cyrino

Espinal

2014

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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“…The one for identification appears to be sharing of plural fe atures with the complement noun. This explains why in French, which lacks phonologically identifiable plural features on the noun, the null D is unavailable (a fact discussed in Delfitto and Schroten 1992). In Italian, suitable heads for the licensing of a are either lexical heads or the functional heads FOC and TOP (see Rizzi 1996 for a recent discussion of the left periphery of the clause).…”

Section: Partitives Reference To Kinds and Semantic Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partitives, Reference to Kinds and Semantic Variation

Chierchia

1997

SALT

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“…Instead, Roodenburg maintains that coordination is responsible for semantic plurality, and bare plurals are permitted in regular argument position. He follows Delfitto and Schroten (1991) Ghosts haunted the campus. Students were aware of the problem.…”

Section: Existential Interpretations Of Coordinated Bare Pluralsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bare coordination: the semantic shift

Bruyn

Swart

2014

Nat Lang Linguist Theory

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This paper develops an analysis of the syntax-semantics interface of two types of split coordination structures. In the first type, two bare singular count nouns appear as arguments in a coordinated structure, as in bride and groom were happy. We call this the N&N construction. In the second type, the determiner shows agreement with the first conjunct, while the second conjunct is bare, as in the Spanish example el hornero y hornera cobraban en panes ('the sg.m baker sg.m and baker sg.f were pl paid in bread loaves'). We call this the DN&N construction. Both N&N and DN&N constructions are common in languages that otherwise require an article or determiner on singular count nouns in regular argument position, and give rise to 'split' readings that cannot be accounted for by the standard semantics of conjunction in terms of set intersection. Furthermore, they are restricted to instances of 'natural' coordination.We formalize the semantics of split conjunction in terms of intersection between sets of matching pairs, which correlates with the lexical semantics and pragmatics of natural coordination. We maintain that an N&N construction gets either a definite or an indefinite interpretation by covert type-shifting, because projection of an article ranging over the coordination as a whole is blocked in languages like English and Spanish. For DN&N structures, we propose a syntactic structure in which D is in construction with the first conjunct. Coordination with a second, bare conjunct requires a covert type-shift that is licensed only under the special matchmaking semantics of conjunction. The analysis addresses a range of issues these coordinate structures raise about syntactic and semantic agreement, in particular with respect to number. Next to English and Spanish we will look into Dutch and French in detail.

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Bare Plurals and the Number Affix in Dp

Cited by 84 publications

References 0 publications

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

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

Partitives, Reference to Kinds and Semantic Variation

Bare coordination: the semantic shift

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