The scope of bare nominals

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Bert Le Bruyn (joint work with Min Que & Femke Smits)

BKL-Taaldag ’09

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Bare nominals 101

some potatoes.

Definition

Common nouns without determiner.

Mary ate

Towards the analysis of Carlson (1977)

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Hypothesis I

English bare plurals are the plural counterpart of the indefinite singular.

a man men+pl

Minnie wishes to talk to a young psychiatrist.

1. > want

2. want > Minnie wishes to talk to young

psychiatrists.

1. > want

2. want >

Bare plurals don’t take wide-scope.

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Problem 1

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Problem 2

A dog was everywhere.

1. > everywhere

2. everywhere > Dogs were everywhere.

1. > everywhere

2. everywhere >

Bare plurals can take scope lower than indefinites.

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Problem 3

Harriet caught a rabbit yesterday, and Ozzie caught it today.1. same rabbits2. different rabbits

Harriet caught rabbits yesterday, and Ozzie caught them today.1. same rabbits2. different rabbits

Bare plurals behave differently w.r.t. anaphora

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Taking stock

English bare plurals are not the plural counterpart of the indefinite singular.

What are they then?

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Hypothesis II

English bare plurals are ‘proper names’ of kinds.

Potatoes were first cultivated in South-America.

The kind tuber tuberosum was first cultivated in

South-America.

I saw potatoes.

I saw instantiations of the kind tuber

tuberosum.

KIND READING

EXISTENTIAL READING

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Problem 1

Minnie wishes to talk to young psychiatrists.

1. > want

2. want > Minnie wishes to talk with this kind of

animal.

1. > want

2. want > Kind DPs don’t take wide-scope either!

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Problem 2

Dogs were everywhere.

1. > everywhere

2. everywhere > This kind of animal was everywhere.

1. > everywhere

2. everywhere >

Kind DPs can take scope lower than indefinites as well!

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Problem 3

Harriet caught rabbits yesterday, and Ozzie caught them today.1. same rabbits2. different rabbits

Harriet caught this kind of animal yesterday, and Ozzie caught it/them today1. same rabbit(s)2. different rabbit(s)

Kind DPs behave in the same way w.r.t. anaphora!

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Carlson (1977)

Conclusion

English bare plurals are ‘proper names’ of kinds.

After Carlson (1977)

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Carlson’s analysis became so popular that his ‘followers’ extended it to bare nouns cross-linguistically.

The ‘opponents’ tried to argue that the existential reading was

- not to be derived from the kind reading

- to be analyzed as a plain indefinite reading.

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Step 1

‘Opponents’:

Bare plurals behave differently w.r.t. anaphora

Max killed very few rabbits, but Hiram killed them in great abundance.

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Step 2Bare plurals can take scope lower

than indefinites.

‘Opponents’:A flag was hanging in front of every building.

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Step 3

‘Opponents’:

???

Bare plurals don’t take wide-scope.

Dutch bare plurals do not behave like kind DPs w.r.t.

scope

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Small audience experiment...

Deze diagnose heeft ons doen inzien waarom hij sommige dwangideeën heeft, zoals altijd de eerste willen zijn (op de trap, in bad, aan tafel...) of woedebuien (omdat hij dingen niet begrijpt) of irrationele angsten (zoals steeds denken dat er bijen rond zoemen, terwijl het soms maar een grasmaaier is). Hoe ouder hij wordt, hij is nu bijna acht jaar, hoe duidelijker het autisme wordt.

Ik vind het absoluut niet leuk dat hij moet huilen vanwege mij. En dat is wel een aantal keren op een dag, omdat hij dingen niet mag of dat hij juist iets moet (naar bed gaan bijvoorbeeld). Ik weet dat het er bij hoort, maar leuk is anders. Nu kan ik er weer even tegen.

omdat hij dingen niet begrijpt

because he things not understand

omdat hij dingen niet mag

because he things not may

Does this necessarily mean that he doesn’t understand anything?

Does this necessarily mean that he’s not allowed to do anything?

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Small audience experiment...

Hij is boos op me omdat hij dit soort redeneringen niet begrijpt.

Hij is boos op me omdat hij van mij dit soort boeken niet lezen mag.

omdat hij dit soort redeneringen niet begrijpt

because he this kind of reasoning not understand

omdat hij van mij dit soort boeken niet lezen mag

because he of me this kind of books not read may

Does this necessarily mean that he doesn’t understand any reasoning of this kind?

Does this necessarily mean that he’s not allowed to do read any book of this kind?

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Conclusion

Whereas Dutch kind DPs cannot ‘out-scope’ negation, Dutch bare plurals can.

-> Dutch bare plurals do not behave like Dutch kind DPs w.r.t. scope.

Dutch bare plurals can take wide scope

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Experiment

Questionnaire with 10 test-items, 6 fillers

Subjects : 37 Dutch native-speakers, non-linguists

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Test item

only compatible with a wide scope reading of the bare plural

Does the last sentence follow the preceding dialogue in a natural way?

Answers on a scale from 0 to 5.

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Baseline

We used the negative polarity item ook maar één (‘even one’) as a baseline.

If bare plurals are better at taking wide-scope over negation than NPIs, we have serious ground to claim that bare plurals in Dutch can take wide scope.

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Results (distribution)NPI > negation

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scale

# su

bje

cts

NPI > negation

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NPIs

Quant > BP unscrambled > neg

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Quant > BP scrambled > negation

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Bare Plurals

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Results (means)

0

0.5

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5

NPI > NEG NPI > NEG QUANT > BP unscr > NEG QUANT > BP scr > NEG

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Overall conclusion

Dutch bare plurals don’t behave like kind DPs w.r.t. scope.

Dutch bare plurals can take wide scope.

At least for Dutch bare plurals Carlson’s kind analysis does not make the right predictions.

(Similar experiments for Mandarin Chinese and English bare plurals and French des N.)