Telicity features of bare nominals

Henriëtte de Swart

Berlin, Dec 2010

Bare plurals and telicity

Mary ate an/the apple in/*for an hour. [telic] Mary ate apples for/*in an hour. [atelic] Mary ate the apples in/*for an hour. It took Mary an hour to eat an apple/*apples. He continued to eat #an apple/#the apple/apples. English bare plurals lead to atelicity (unbounded

process), most other nominal arguments to telicity (event with inherent endpoint).

Iterative durativity/bare habituality

John found #a flea/fleas on his dog for a week.

John repairs #a bicycle/bicycles. Every day, John repairs a bicycle/bicycles. Sg indefinite does not allow multiple event

reading, even if one object is involved per event; no bare habituality.

Sg indef OK under quantifier scope.

Aspectual composition

Semantics of nominal argument determines aspectual nature of VP (S).

Verkuyl (1972/1993): [±SQA] feature on NPs Krifka (1989): quantized/non-quantized objects. Mapping objects events/path structure. Quantized object maps onto quantized event/

bounded path (Mary ate an apple) Cumulative object maps onto cumulative event/

unbounded path (Mary ate apples)

Iterative durativity

With count noun interpretations, cumulative reference requires plurality (Scha 1984).

Van Geenhoven (2004, 2005): pluractionality explains combination of accomplishment/ achievement with for-adverbial: bare plural distributes internal argument over events.

De Swart (2006) on bare habituality: bare plural behaves like dependent plural on set of events.

Inherent telicity

The dog ate up a/the cake that I baked for the party.

The dog ate up the cakes/ *cakes I baked for the party. He drank up (all) the water/*water in the tap.

Particle verb inherently telic: mapping from object to event requires object to be quantized incompatible with bare plural/mass noun.

Cross-linguistic support (Italian)

Ha stirato molte camicie in due ore / *per due ore di seguito. He ironed many shirts in two hours/*for two hours.

Ha stirato camicie *in due ore / per due ore di seguito. He ironed shirts *in two hours/for two hours.

Dobrovie-Sorin & Laca (2003).

Broadening our view

Do bare plurals in all languages lead to atelicity? If so, why? If not, why not?

What about bare singular (count) nominals (in languages in which they occur)? Predictions about telicity?

If we want to investigate the telicity features of bare nominals, where do we start?

Bare nominal semantics

BN: nominal without a determiner ~ no info about quantity, discourse reference.

Intuition: bare nominals convey (covertly) what is not expressed (overtly) by determiners (cf. Chierchia 1998, blocking).

What features of the language come into play in determining the aspectual nature of configurations with bare nominals?

A typology of bare nominals

Cross-linguistic variation in the semantics of bare nominals correlates with variation in number marking and article use.

Number: sg/pl distinction leads to BS/BPl distinction ~ investigate number neutrality.

Article use: definite/indefinite article blocks definite interpretation/discourse reference.

De Swart & Zwarts (2009, 2010): OT typology.

OT typology of number/articles

*FunctN: Avoid functional structure in the nominal domain (markedness constraint).

FPl: Parse sum reference in the functional projection of the nominal (faithfulness constr.)

FDef: Parse dynamic uniqueness by means of a functional layer above NP.

Fdr: Parse a discourse referent by means of a functional layer above NP.

No sg/pl, no articles: Mand. Chinese

*FunctN >> {faith constraints number, articles} Wò kànjiàn xióng le. [Mandarin

Chinese] I see bear Asp ‘I saw a bear/bears.’ Gou juezhong le. Dog extinct Asp. ‘Dogs are extinct.’ Gou hen jiling.

Dog very smart. ‘The dog/dogs are intelligent.’

Induced telicity in Mandarin

Wo he-guan le tang. I drink-up asp soup ‘I drank up the soup/*soup.’

Wo mai-zhao le shu. I buy-get asp book I managed to buy the books/*books.’

Sybesma (1999): RV construction requires definite/specific interpretation of bare nominal.

Telicity features of Mandarin BN

BNn: quantized (‘indef’, ‘specific’, ‘definite’),

cumulative (‘unbounded plurality’) No blocking of form/meaning combination:

telic/atelic interpretation for number neutral BN.

Sg/pl distinction, no article: Slavic

FPl >> *FunctN >> {faithfulness constraints definiteness/discourse reference}

On ot-krylperf okno. [Russian] he open.past.perf window.acc ‘He opened (the/a) window.’

Petja čitalimp stat’i/literaturu Peter read-imp-past.sg. articles/literature-acc ‘Peter was reading articles/the articles/ literature/the literature/read articles/literature.’

BS in Slavic semantically singular

BSs in Slavic languages have atomic reference: complement of BPl under bidirectional optimization (Farkas & de Swart 2010).

at sum

BS

BPl

Bare habituality with BPl

Cumulativity of count noun depends on plurality (Scha 1984) ~ no cumulative interpretation for BSs.

Petja čitaet lekcii v universitete [Russian] Peter read-IMP-pres lectures in university ‘Peter gives lectures (is a lecturer) at the university

Petja zavtra čitaet lekciju v universitete Peter tomorrow read-IMP-pres.3sg lecture in university ‘Tomorrow, Peter is giving (will give) a lecture at the university’ Borik (2002: 140).

BPl definite/indefinite in Slavic

Petja pro-čital stat’i/literaturu Peter perf-read-past.sg articles/literature-acc ‘Peter read the articles/the literature’

No definite article, no competition: BPl underspecified ~ adapts under contextual pressure to define inherent endpoint by taking up definite/specific interpretation: Filip (1999), Piñón (2001), Gehrke (2008),..

Perfectivity induces telicity

Piñón (2001): Perfective prefix requires quantized (not cumulative) object.

Czytaći: Imp(Read) = yxe [Read(e,x,y)] Prze-czytaćp: Perf(Imp(Read)) =

PQe[Q(e,xe’[P(e’, xe” [Read(e”,s,y)])]) x[CUM(Q(xe’[Read(e’,x,y)]))] y[CUM(P(xe’[Read(e’,x,y)]))]]

PQ[CUM(Perf-Imp-Read(P )(Q))]

Slavic BS/BPl and telicity

BSs: quantized (‘indef’, ‘specific’, ‘definite’)

cumulative BPl: quantized (‘specific’, ‘definite’)

cumulative (‘unbounded plural’)

Definite article (Hebrew)

{FPl, Fdef} >> *FunctN >> Fdr ra’iti kelev. hu navax/ #hem navxu

I-saw dog. It barked/ #they barked ‘I saw a dog. It barked/ #they barked.’

novxim klavin. Bark dogs ‘Dogs are barking.’

Doron (2003). Strong contrast sg/pl ~ BS has atomic reference: BSs. Fully discourse referential. Restricted to indefinite interpretation under bidirectional optimization.

BS in Hebrew semantically indefinite

Blocking by DefSg restricts BSs in Hebrew to indefinite interpretation.

Idem for BPl (non-definite only)

BS

DefSg

Telicity features of Hebrew BS/BPl

hu kara sefer be-ša’a/ be-mešex ša’a he read book in-hour/ for hour ‘He read a book in an hour/for an hour.’ (weak telicity features, no cumulative reading)

hu nipeax balonim bemešex šaa he blew balloons for an hour

hu nipeax et ha-balonim tox 5 dakot. he blew acc the balloons in 5 minutes

Cabredo Hoffher (2009), Yitzhaki (2003)

No iterative durativity for Hebrew BS

Lack of plurality blocks iterative durativity/bare habituality of Hebrew BSs

John me’ašen sigariya John smokes cigarette John is smoking a cigarette (episodic) John smokes cigarettes (habitual)

John me’ašen sigariyot John smokes cigarettes John smokes cigarettes (habitual)

Cabredo Hoffher (2009), Yoad Winter (p.c.)

Telicity features of Hebrew BS/BPl

BSs: quantized (‘indefinite’)

cumulative BPl: quantized (‘specific’, ‘definite’)

cumulative (‘unbounded plural’)

Def/indef article (Romance, Hungarian)

{Fpl, Fdef, Fdr} >> *FunctN Morphological sg/pl contrast, def/indef sg, and

bare/indef plural (depending on discourse role plural morphology, cf. Farkas & de Swart 2003).

Strong contrast BS everything else: BS does not satisfy Fdr ~ restricted to constructions with ‘weak’ discourse referentiality features: object position of ‘have’ verbs, bare predication, bare coordination, bare PPS..

Number neutrality of BS

Busco pis. Un a Barcelona i un a Girona. [Catalan] look.for-1sg appartment. One in B. and one in G. ‘I’m looking for an apartment. One in Barcelona and one in Girona.’ Espinal & Mcnally (2010)

Mari belyeget gujt. [Hungarian] Mari stamp-acc collect ‘Mari collects stamps.’

BS in Romance/Hungarian number neutral: BSn. Farkas & de Swart (2003): number defined for

discourse referents, not for thematic arguments (DRT). Weak referentiality ~ number neutrality.

Bare singulars with ‘have’ verbs

Spanish, Catalan, Romanian: fairly liberal use of bare singulars in object position of ‘have’ verbs, cf. Dobrovie-Sorin, Bleam & Espinal (2006), Espinal & McNally (2010).

Lleva sombrero. [Sp] / Porta barret. [Catalan] wears hat wears hat ‘(S)he wears a hat.’

Ion are casă [Romanian] Ion has house. ‘Ion has a house.’

But: mostly stative verbs no telicity effects.

Accomplishment verbs: telicity

Encontraron aparcamento (en diez minutos) [Sp] Found parking (in ten minutes) ‘They found a parking place in ten minutes

Espinal (2009): there could be more than one parking place if more than one driver (NN).

Telic interpretation of bare nominal possible, at least with certain verbs. Espinal (p.c.): BSn must be aspectually inert (property interpretation).

Collectivity vs. iteration in H.

Ma delutan szaraz levelet szedtem ossze a haz korul. This afternoon dry leaf gathered together the house around ‘This afternoon, I gathered dry leaves around the house.’

Ma delutan szaraz leveleket szedtem ossze egy-es-è-vel This afternoon dry leaves gathered together one-by-one a haz korul [Hungarian] the house around ‘This afternoon, I gathered dry leaves one by one around the house.’

Number neutrality in object position ‘collect’ verbs, but no iterative durativity. Dayal (2009).

No iterative durativity in H

János (*egy hétig) bolhát talált a utyáján. John(*one week-till) flea.acc found the dog-3sg-on. John found some fleas on his dog (on one occasion). [Hungarian] Not: John found fleas on his dog for a week (iterative durative reading), Bende-Farkas (2001).

Number neutrality in Romance/Hungarian does not lead to atelicity via plurality (no cumulativity).

Telicity features of BS/BPl in Romance/Hungarian

BSn: quantized (‘indefinite’, ‘definite’) cumulative (‘unbounded plurality’) BPl: quantized (‘specific’, ‘definite’) cumulative (‘unbounded plural’) Def/indef and sg/pl contrast do not apply to

non-referential arguments (require dr). Cumulative BSn requires (dr) plurality for event

distributivity: not available for BSn in Romance/ Hungarian.

Recap: role of number in telicity

*FunctN >> FPl or FPl 0 *FunctN leads to number neutrality ~ BSn cumulative atelic, iterative durativity/bare habituality (Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Braz. Portuguese)

FPl >> *FunctN leads to atomic reference for BSs ~ cumulative telic, no iterative durativity/bare habituality (Slavic, Hebrew).

Recap: role of definite article

*FunctN >> Fdef makes definite/specific interpretations available for both BS and BPl ~ quantized telic interpretations available with BS and BPl (Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Slavic).

Fdef >> *FunctN restricts BS/BPl to indefinite interpretation ~ BPl quantized atelic interpretation only for BPl (Hebrew, Brazilian Portuguese).

Recap: role of indef. article

In Brazilian Portuguese, Papiamentu indefinite sg competes with BSn ~ BSn quantized atelic interpretation only, iterative durativity/ bare habituality OK. Why?

Fdr >> *FunctN: BS restricted to non-referential position, number and definiteness irrelevant, but no asserted plurality. BSn cumulative quasi telic interpretation verb driven, no iterative durativity/bare habituality (Romance, Hungarian).

Project Info

Weak referentiality: bare nominals at the interface of lexicon, syntax and semantics (2008-2012).

http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/b.s.w.lebruyn/weakreferentiality/index.htm