Bare Nominals and Number in Brazilian and European Portuguese

Müller, Ana; Oliveira, Fátima

doi:10.5334/jpl.17

Cited by 41 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…With generic readings, both bare singulars and bare plurals can occur preverbally, as shown in (10c[ 1 3 _ T D $ D I F F ] ) and (10e)[ 1 4 _ T D $ D I F F ] . Another property of bare singulars in BrP is that they are number-less (Schmitt and Munn, 2002;Schmitt, 2001, 2005;Müller, 2002;Müller and Oliveira, 2004): as shown by the translations in (11), bare singulars are compatible with both singular and plural interpretations. In contrast, bare plurals are unambiguously plural in their interpretation (12).…”

Section: Np Interpretation In Brazilian Portuguese (Brp)mentioning

confidence: 92%

“…(11) and (12)[ 1 2 _ T D $ D I F F ] are from Schmitt and Munn, 2002:187). With existential readings, bare singulars can easily occur in both object position (11a) and postverbal subject position (11b), but are less acceptable in preverbal subject position (11c) (see also Müller and Oliveira, 2004). 4 In contrast, bare plurals can easily occur in all three positions (12).…”

Section: Np Interpretation In Brazilian Portuguese (Brp)mentioning

confidence: 94%

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An experimental investigation of the expression of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

Ionin

Montrul

Santos

2011

Lingua

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Section: Np Interpretation In Brazilian Portuguese (Brp)mentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Np Interpretation In Brazilian Portuguese (Brp)mentioning

confidence: 94%

An experimental investigation of the expression of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

Ionin

Montrul

Santos

2011

Lingua

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“…It has been pointed out in the literature that BrP allows BNs to freely occur with all kinds of verbs (Müller 2002;Müller and Oliveira 2004;Munn and Schmitt 2005;Lopes 2006, among others) (see Sect. 1).…”

Section: Bns and Argument Structurementioning

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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“…For indefinite contexts, usually only "narrow scope" (opaque) readings are considered as available (cf. Schmitt & Munn 2003, Müller & Oliveira 2004among others). This rules out specificity.…”

Section: The Case Of Definite/specific Bare Singulars In Brazilian Pomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Grammaticality Judgments Within an Integral Approach to Brazilian Portuguese Bare Nominals

Wall

2014

Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics

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This paper is mainly concerned with two points: The first one is a better theoretical foundation of the interpretation of acceptability judgment tasks (AJTs) in studies on Brazilian Portuguese (BrP) bare nominals (BNs). I draw on Bader & Häussler's (2010) model which is based on Signal Detection Theory and show that an (explicitly or implicitly) binary approach to AJTs on BrP BNs fails to capture the whole picture. This is exemplified by contrasting the two AJT studies on specific and definite BNs presented in this paper with other experimental approaches to BrP BNs. The second concern is the status of these rather marginal forms in BrP. It will be claimed that only an approach combining different empirical methods can give a sufficiently clear picture. In order to support this claim, a third experiment, namely an elicitation task will be presented and discussed. IntroductionAt least since their appearance as counter-evidence to Chierchia's (1998) wellknown Nominal Mapping Parameter in Schmitt & Munn (1999) 2 , Brazilian Portu-1 This work was financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 833, project C3. I would like to thank Sam Featherston, Oliver Bott, Fabian Schlotterbeck and Janina Rado for their support regarding technical implementation, statistical analysis and much constructive feedback. Two anonymous reviewers helped to improve the paper at several critical points. I am also grateful to all the people in Brazil who made the data collection possible, special thanks to José Simões da Silva, Célia Regina dos Santos Lopes and Bruno Festas. The interpretation of the results as well as remaining errors are completely my responsibility.2 For a recent discussion of Schmitt & Munn's claim with regard to "semantic parameterization" and the role of the BrP data as counter-evidence to Chierchia (1998), see Dayal (2011 and references therein. 2 guese (BrP) BNs have received a considerable degree of attention from researchers interested in the syntax and semantics of the nominal domain. This is due to the fact that BrP, which has a full-fledged Romance-style article paradigm, at the same time allows for plural as well as singular BNs in argument position in surprisingly many contexts. In the words of Braga et al. (2010: 75f): "[…] the determiner phrase […] ranges from overtly definite and indefinite phrases, both singular and plural, to a complete system of bare noun phrases in argument position: bare singulars […], bare plurals […] and bare mass […]". The investigation of this topic has led to a very dynamic and productive but also controversial discussion during the last decade, especially in the case of the so-called "bare singulars" (BSs) 3 , to which this paper is mainly devoted, as well. Examples (1) and (2) contrast a BS with a bare mass noun:(1) Professor trabalha muito.Teacher works much 'Teachers work a lot.' (Müller & Oliveira 2004: 12) (2) Leite faz bem pra saúde. milk makes well for health 'Milk is healthy. ' (Braga et al. 2010: 76) While (2) is not surprising at all from a Roman...

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Bare Nominals and Number in Brazilian and European Portuguese

Cited by 41 publications

References 11 publications

An experimental investigation of the expression of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

An experimental investigation of the expression of genericity in English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

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

The Role of Grammaticality Judgments Within an Integral Approach to Brazilian Portuguese Bare Nominals

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