Bare Singulars and So-Called Bare Singulars
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Bare Singulars and So-Called Bare Singulars Melisa Gisele Rinaldi Queen Mary, University of London September 2018 Abstract This thesis investigates bare singular nouns from a cross-linguistic perspective, with an emphasis on Spanish. While there has been considerable work on bare plural and bare mass nominals, there is, in comparison, little work on bare singulars and this dissertation aims to fill that gap. I examine the behaviour of bare singulars in argumental position in Rioplatense Spanish (RS), Catalan, Greek, Norwegian, Brazilian Portuguese (BP), Persian and Afro-Bolivian Spanish (ABS) – all of which make use of bare singulars even if they have an indefinite determiner as part of their functional array. I argue that these languages can be split into two groups depending on the position and interpretation that bare singulars occupy. For the first group (RS, Catalan, Greek and Norwegian) I argue against a number neutral (pseudo)incorporation analysis. Based on their referential properties, binding pos- sibilities and singular number specification, I propose that they are DPs, albeit of a defective type. Group 2 bare singulars (BP, Persian and ABS) are truly number neutral DPs. I propose that this is the case as bare plurals, standardly assumed to be number neutral, cannot fulfil that role in these languages. The second part of my dissertation focuses on predicate nominals, both bare and with the indefinite article, in Spanish. Following Roy (2013), I defend the idea that the relation of predication is only one and that the different interpretations available depend on the size of the predicate nominal. Bare predicate nominals in Spanish behave by and large like their French counterparts – any noun can appear bare as long as it is interpreted as the ascription of a property to the subject. Predicate nominals with the indefinite article, on the other hand, will be analysed as containing a degree phrase. The third part of my dissertation deals with the two copulas in Spanish. Queen Mary’s OPAL #38 Occasional Papers Advancing Linguistics Acknowledgements Doing a PhD has certainly been one of the most difficult things I have ever been through (especially the last few months!), but as well as being challenging, it has definitely been stimulating and enriching. I know for a fact that I would not have got to this point without the support of many people who believed in me and encouraged me to write this thesis. The person at the top of my list is, without a doubt, my supervisor, Hagit Borer. Igenuinelycannotthankherenoughforputtingupwithmeforalltheseyears! She has been patient, encouraging and has always managed to make me feel pos- itive about my work after every single meeting I had with her. It has been in- credibly rewarding for me to have her as my supervisor - she has the uncanny ability of remembering everything (I wish I had a tiny bit of her memory!) and always seeing the important questions even in the smallest pieces of data. She is afantasticmentorandrolemodelandIamverythankfulforallhersupportand guidance....more than I can express here. My second supervisor, Luisa Mart´ı, has also been excellent. I thank her for her support, feedback and for always being open to discussing things. I also have to say thanks to her for making semantics a bit less daunting to me! I am also ex- tremely grateful to the other Linguistics sta↵at QMUL for their comments and feedback on my work, especially David Adger, David Hall, Daniel Harbour, Fryni Panayidou, Hazel Pearson, Devyani Sharma, Linnaea Stockall and Coppe van Urk. IalsowouldliketothankIanRobertsandIsabelleRoyformakingmyvivaavery friendly and interesting discussion. Many thanks for your insightful comments, suggestions and questions! One of the best aspects of my PhD was working (and su↵ering!) with my fellow LingLabbers. Besides the work part, we have shared countless lunches, teas and lots of chocolate, and it has been a pleasure to meet and work with all of you. 3 Special thanks to Christian, Danniella and Zoe for their friendship, talks and en- couragement. The past four years would not have been the same if you had not been around! Also a massive thank you to Mohammad, my syntax buddy, for listening to me talking about bare singulars everywhere (even when people on the DLR stared because of our indecipherable conversations!) - it has been great work- ing and spending time with you. Another (former) LingLabber and fellow ballet enthusiast I want to thank is my compa˜nera Fryni. Efharisto for your support, guidance, chocolate and Roberto-trips! I am grateful to Queen Mary University of London for awarding me the grant that made this thesis possible. Outside of QMUL (and the UK) I want to thank the two women who have inspired me to get into this field - Graciela Palacio and Silvia Iummato. They instilled their love of Linguistics in me and have always been extremely supportive and generous. Thank you for all the time you spent on me, for the countless recommendation letters you wrote when I moved to the UK and for genuinely caring. While this thesis is far from being perfect, I hope it makes you a little bit proud. My friend Vicky Chillado also deserves my gratitude for helping me with my research pro- posal, for answering my never-ending questions asking for random judgements and, more generally, for always being there. Amassivethankyoutomyfamilyandfriends.TomyparentsandmybrotherI simply have to thank for everything. They have always believed in me and encour- aged me to follow my dreams, even when that involved leaving Argentina almost 10 years ago. Everything I have achieved is thanks to their hard work and love, and my gratitude definitely goes beyond the words expressed in just one paragraph. Thank you also to my family in the UK. To Valeria, for your patience during the busy periods and for the “mates” we drank to keep us awake while working! To Ale and Andy, my other brothers, thank you for your encouragement and support. And last, but definitely not least, thank you to my amazing husband, Marc. You have been around since the beginning of this PhD and have always been supportive and believed that I could achieve this. Thank you for taking care of everything house-related towards the end when I was barely home and for encouraging me when this thesis was driving me mad! I love you. 4 Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 1 Introduction 10 1.1 Theoretical assumptions: The Nominal Projection .......... 13 1.1.1 The Cl layer ........................... 15 1.1.2 The # layer ........................... 16 1.1.3 The D layer ........................... 17 1.2 The questions and debates ....................... 19 1.2.1 Incorporation (of some kind) .................. 20 1.2.2 Number neutrality ....................... 23 1.2.3 Individual Level vs Stage Level distinction .......... 27 1.3 Thesis overview and main claims ................... 30 2 Bare Singulars in Argumental Position (Group 1) 33 2.1 Introduction ............................... 33 2.2 Group 1 - Only Object Position .................... 38 2.2.1 Overview ............................ 38 2.2.2 Adjacency and (Pseudo) Noun Incorporation ......... 43 2.2.3 Reflexive Binding ........................ 50 2.2.4 Scope .............................. 52 5 2.2.5 Telicity ............................. 54 2.2.6 Number specification ...................... 56 2.3 have-predicates ............................. 61 2.3.1 Espinal and McNally’s proposal (2011) ............ 63 2.3.2 LeBruyn, de Swart and Zwarts’ proposal (2014) ....... 67 2.4 General Theoretical Perspective .................... 70 2.4.1 Hebrew bare singulars ..................... 71 2.5 A proposal ................................ 73 2.5.1 Introduction ........................... 73 2.5.2 Bare Singulars and the Structure of DP ............ 74 2.5.3 Null D or no null D? ...................... 75 2.5.4 Towards an analysis ...................... 77 2.6 Chapter summary ............................ 84 3 Bare Singulars in Argumental Position (Group II) 85 3.1 Overview ................................. 85 3.1.1 Discourse referential properties ................ 88 3.1.2 Scope .............................. 91 3.1.3 Number ............................. 91 3.1.4 Telicity ............................. 93 3.1.5 Adjacency ............................ 93 3.1.6 No Incorporation ........................ 94 3.2 Group II and the Nominal Mapping Parameter ............ 95 3.3 So-called bare singulars structure ...................101 3.4 Chapter summary ............................103 3.5 Some final thoughts ...........................104 4 Predicate nominals 106 4.1 Introduction ...............................106 4.2 Predicate Nominals in French - Roy (2013) ..............110 6 4.3 Predicate nominals in Spanish .....................115 4.3.1 Predicate nominals - Characteristics ..............120 4.4 This proposal ..............................129 4.4.1 SER + NP ...........................132 4.4.2 SER + UN NP .........................136 4.4.3 Evidence for degree .......................165 4.4.4 On chairs and doctors .....................176 4.5 Chapter summary ............................180 5 Ser or estar? 182 5.1 Spanish two copulas ..........................182 5.2 Luj´an’s (1981)aspectaccount .....................184 5.3 Other syntactic explanations ......................188 5.3.1 Brucart (2012) .........................188 5.3.2 Roy (2013) ...........................192 5.3.3 Gallego and Uriagereka (2009, 2016) .............196 5.3.4 Zagona (2015) ..........................199 5.4 A discourse-based