Telicity features of bare nominals

1. Telicity features of bare nominals Henriëtte de Swart Berlin, Dec 2010

2. 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).

3. 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.

4. 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)

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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).

8. 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?

9. 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?

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.’

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. Sg/pl distinction, no article: Slavic • FPl >> *FunctN >> {faithfulness constraints definiteness/discourse reference} • On ot-krylperfokno. [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.’

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

17. 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).

18. 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),..

19. Perfectivity induces telicity • Piñón (2001): Perfective prefix requires quantized (not cumulative) object. • Czytaći: Imp(Read) = yxe [Read(e,x,y)] • Prze-czytaćp: Perf(Imp(Read)) = PQe[Q(e,xe’[P(e’, xe” [Read(e”,s,y)])])  x[CUM(Q(xe’[Read(e’,x,y)]))]  y[CUM(P(xe’[Read(e’,x,y)]))]] • PQ[CUM(Perf-Imp-Read(P )(Q))]

20. Slavic BS/BPl and telicity • BSs:  quantized (‘indef’, ‘specific’, ‘definite’)  cumulative • BPl:  quantized (‘specific’, ‘definite’)  cumulative (‘unbounded plural’)

21. 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.

22. BS in Hebrew semantically indefinite Blocking by DefSg restricts BSs in Hebrew to indefinite interpretation. Idem for BPl (non-definite only)

23. Telicity features of Hebrew BS/BPl • hu kara sefer be-ša’a/ be-mešex ša’ahe 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)

24. 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.)

25. Telicity features of Hebrew BS/BPl • BSs:  quantized (‘indefinite’)  cumulative • BPl:  quantized (‘specific’, ‘definite’)  cumulative (‘unbounded plural’)

26. 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..

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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).

30. 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).

31. 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).

32. 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.

33. 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).

34. 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).

35. 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).

36. 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