Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

1 Introduction: the empirical issues 2 Theoretical issues 3 Bare plurals as names of ‘kinds’ 3.1 Individuals and stages 3.2 Against a quantificational analysis of BPs 3.3 Problems with Carlson's analysis 4 Bare plurals as indefinites 5 The internal syntax of BPs 6 Open issues and topics for future research 6.1 The issue of reconstruction 6.2 Bare plurals, indefinites, and genericity 6.3 Bare nouns in French and Chinese 6.4 Non-existential readings 7 Conclusion: summary It is normally believed that noun phrases (NPs) in argument position must be introduced by a determiner, that is, they are in fact, under the so-called ‘DP-hypothesis’, determiner phrases (DPs). This requirement does not hold for NPs which do not count as arguments, for instance, NPs in predicative position (English is rather idiosyncratic in that respect) or vocatives. This contrast is shown in (1): (1) a. Bill è medico. (Italian, predicative) Bill is a doctor. b. Doctor, come here! (vocative) c. *Doctor came immediately. d. *I saw doctor. However, this observation does not seem entirely correct, since a large variety of languages apparently admit determinerless nouns in argument position. In certain languages (such as Chinese, where the count/mass distinction is apparently neutralized) there does not seem to be any restriction on the occurrence of bare nouns in argument position. In many other ... log in or subscribe to read full text