Articulated Definiteness without Articles

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 501-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Jenks
Keyword(s):  
Subject Position ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
Type Shifting

While it lacks a definite article, Mandarin makes a principled distinction between unique and anaphoric definites: unique definites are realized with a bare noun, and anaphoric definites are realized with a demonstrative, except in subject position. The following proposals account for these facts: (a) bare nouns achieve definite interpretations via a last-resort type-shifting operator ι, which has a unique definite meaning; (b) demonstratives can occur as anaphoric definites because they have a semantic argument beyond their nominal restriction that can be filled by an index; and (c) bare nominal subjects are topics. A principle called Index! requires that indexical expressions be used whenever possible. Mandarin is contrasted with Cantonese, which, like English, is shown to have access to an ambiguous definite article.

Bare Nominals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert Le Bruyn ◽  
Henriëtte de Swart ◽  
Joost Zwarts
Keyword(s):  
Definite Article ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Narrow Scope ◽  
Bare Plurals ◽  
Nominal Structure ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
Bare Nominals ◽  
Made In ◽  
Generic Sentences

Bare nominals (also called “bare nouns”) are nominal structures without an overt article or other determiner. The distinction between a bare noun and a noun that is part of a larger nominal structure must be made in context: Milk is a bare nominal in I bought milk, but not in I bought the milk. Bare nouns have a limited distribution: In subject or object position, English allows bare mass nouns and bare plurals, but not bare singular count nouns (*I bought table). Bare singular count nouns only appear in special configurations, such as coordination (I bought table and chairs for £182). From a semantic perspective, it is noteworthy that bare nouns achieve reference without the support of a determiner. A full noun phrase like the cookies refers to the maximal sum of cookies in the context, because of the definite article the. English bare plurals have two main interpretations: In generic sentences they refer to the kind (Cookies are sweet), in episodic sentences they refer to some exemplars of the kind (Cookies are in the cabinet). Bare nouns typically take narrow scope with respect to other scope-bearing operators like negation. The typology of bare nouns reveals substantial variation, and bare nouns in languages other than English may have different distributions and meanings. But genericity and narrow scope are recurring features in the cross-linguistic study of bare nominals.

Variation in Classifier Languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 255-305
Author(s):  
Li Julie Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Classifier Languages ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
The One ◽  
Numeral Classifier ◽  
Nominal Arguments

Chapter 5 develops a uniform account of bare nominal arguments (i.e., bare numeral classifier phrases, bare classifier phrases, bare nouns) in classifier languages. It achieves that by extending the scope of discussion to more classifier languages. It starts with three points on which Mandarin and Nuosu Yi differ and which make this comparison interesting from the perspective of building a theory of cross-linguistic variation. Their differences are: (i) whether or not they have the function category D in their grammar, (ii) whether or not they freely allow numeral-less classifier phrases to appear in argument positions, as a result of applying covert argument formation operations unrestrictedly, and (iii) whether or not they allow one-deletion from the [one Cl N] phrase in the PF. Three parameters based on these differences account for the variation.

scholarly journals Of nouns, and kinds, and properties, and why one D is null or not

2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-288
Author(s):  
Diana Guillemin
Keyword(s):  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
Null Element ◽  
Definite Articles ◽  
Nominal Arguments

AbstractThis paper assumes that the basic denotation of nouns can be that of kind or property and that the determiner system of a language is a direct consequence of this cross-linguistic variation. An analysis of how definiteness and specificity are marked across three languages with different determiner systems, namely, English, French and Mauritian Creole (MC), provides evidence of the co-relation between noun denotation and determiner system. Languages with kind denoting nouns (English and MC) admit bare nominal arguments, which are barred in French, whose nouns denote properties. However, English and MC differ in that English has an overt definite article, which is a lacking in MC. This null element requires licensing by an overt specificity marker in some syntactic environments. The English and MC definite articles are analyzed as operators that quantify over sets of kind denoting nouns, and they serve a different function from the French definite article, which is specified for number and selects properties.

pro as a Minimal nP: Toward a Unified Approach to Pro-Drop

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pilar P. Barbosa
Keyword(s):  
Basic Mechanism ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Unified Approach ◽  
Argument Position ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Existential Closure ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
Null Element ◽  
Type Shifting

In this article, I examine the properties of the partial null subject languages (NSLs) when compared with the consistent and the discourse pro-drop languages and argue that the same basic mechanism underlies pro-drop in partial as well as discourse pro-drop: namely, null NP anaphora, as originally proposed in Tomioka 2003 for discourse pro-drop. The two sets of languages show a correlation between the occurrence of null arguments and the availability of a bare nominal in argument position. I suggest that the null element is a default, minimally specified nominal—the same item that arguably appears as a complement of D in pronouns. It is a proform that minimally consists of the categorizing head n, lacking a root, the meaning of which is ‘entity’ (a property that is trivially true of any individual in the domain). nP introduces a variable that may be bound under Existential Closure, yielding the impersonal interpretation; otherwise, its denotation is type-shifted to an individual (ɩ) under the appropriate conditions. The crosslinguistic differences found in the interpretation of the null subject depend on the resources available in particular languages for application of ɩ type-shifting: the (bare NP) languages that lack such resources only have quasi-argumental and impersonal null subjects (semi pro-drop languages). Finally, I show that the idea that pro reduces to [nP e] can also be successfully extended to the consistent NSLs, provided it is assumed that, in this type of NSL, the head bearing agreement morphology bears a D-feature and interpretable ϕ-features.

scholarly journals Interpreting Bare Nouns: Type-Shifting vs. Silent Heads

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Izumi
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrases ◽  
The Other ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Null Arguments ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Type Shifting

Bare noun phrases in article-less languages such as Japanese have a variety of interpretations. There are two competing approaches to the semantics of bare noun phrases: one is to appeal to type-shifting to derive various interpretations, and the other is to introduce more structure, i.e., silent determiners. I present an argument against the latter silent-head approach based on the behaviors of phonologically null arguments in Japanese. The silent-head approach has difficulties in explaining the semantics of null arguments, whatever syntactic analysis of null arguments turns out to be correct. The type-shifting approach to bare noun phrases, by contrast, easily accounts for the semantics of null arguments.

scholarly journals Definiteness, Uniqueness, and Maximality in Languages With and Without Articles

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-366
Author(s):  
Radek Šimík ◽  
Christoph Demian
Keyword(s):  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Definite Descriptions ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
Bare Nominals ◽  
Type Shifting

Abstract We present a number of experiments testing influential hypotheses about the meaning of definite descriptions (in languages with articles, represented here by German) and bare nominals (in articleless languages, represented here by Russian). Our results are in line with the commonly entertained hypothesis that definite descriptions convey uniqueness (if singular) or maximality (if plural), but fail to support two hypotheses about bare nominal interpretation, namely that singular bare nominals convey uniqueness ( Dayal 2004) and that topical bare nominals convey uniqueness/maximality ( Geist 2010, among many others). Uniqueness or maximality inferences are expected to arise via covert type-shifting under these approaches. Our results are compatible with what we take to be the null hypothesis, namely that bare nominals in articleless languages are existential and free of presuppositional semantics, even if they correspond—in their use—to definite descriptions ( Heim 2011).

Lidwoordomissie in Moroccan Flavored Dutch* : Kale nomina in eentalige Nederlandse uitingen

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-322
Author(s):  
Kristel Doreleijers ◽  
Marjo van Koppen ◽  
Jacomine Nortier
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Nominal Phrase ◽  
Language Variety ◽  
New Information ◽  
Ethnic Subgroup ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
Bare Nominal ◽  
New Interpretation

Abstract Article omission in Moroccan Flavored Dutch. Bare nouns in monolingual Dutch expressionsThe aim of this paper is to shed light on article omission in Moroccan Flavored Dutch (MFD), a language variety in which Moroccan linguistic material (mainly Berber and Arabic) is combined with Dutch. It is well-known that MFD speakers are often inclined to omit articles in nominal phrases, and by doing so expressions contain so-called bare nouns (nominals without articles, i.e. definite or indefinite articles). This raises the question what triggers article omission in MFD. This study focuses on Dutch expressions that are embedded in MFD discourse and provides an innovative explanation for bare noun constructions. In particular, we argue that article omission in MFD is the result of an interplay between identity marking (article omission indexes the belonging to an ethnic subgroup in contrast to outsiders) and information structure. We show that there is a correlation between the syntactic position of a constituent and the type of article (i.e. definite or indefinite) that is omitted. The direct object position yields an indefinite, discourse-new interpretation of the bare nominal phrase. Since the neutral surface order of a Dutch main clause is subject-initial, the direct object position is canonically a focus position that is associated with new information. Therefore, the information structure of Dutch clauses seems to be a trigger for article omission.

Bare nouns in Danish with special reference to the object position

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-72
Author(s):  
Henrik Høeg Müller
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Object Position ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Syntactic Position ◽  
Bare Nouns

Based on a discussion of correlations between syntactic position, prosodic cues, aspect and generic vs. non-generic interpretations, this paper substantiates that Danish Bare Plural count nouns (BPs) have a wider distribution than Bare Singular count nouns (BSs). BPs, unlike BSs, can occur in subject position, function as both generic and existential arguments, and appear with all aspectual verb classes. However, BPs and BSs expressing a non-generic, modificational meaning concur in object position of activity verbs and stative verbs with a possession relation implicature. These V+BP and V+BS structures, it is suggested, form a progressive continuum of three different subtypes of pseudo-incorporation (PI), namely (i) PI of BPs (low integration as inspise æbler‘eat apples’), (ii) PI oftype 1BSs (medium integration as inmale hus‘paint house’), and (iii) PI oftype 2BSs (maximum integration as inspille violin‘play violin’).

scholarly journals Definite article use with generic reference in German: an empirical study

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Barton ◽  
Nadine Kolb ◽  
Tanja Kupisch
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Definite Article ◽  
Bare Nouns

AbstractThis study is concerned with the distribution of the definite article in German with plural nominals that have a generic reading . In Standard German, genericity is typically expressed by bare nouns (

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