draft of November 2011

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Thus, the morphosyntactic properties of bare nouns provide evidence for an argument analysis since there is no evidence of incorporation. No number neutrality for bare singulars Semantic evidence also indicates that bare nouns are arguments and excludes an incorporation analysis. A characteristic property of incorporated bare nouns is number neutrality, even when they are marked with singular morphology. Number neutrality entails compatibility with both atomic (singular) and plural interpretations (Farkas and de Swarts 2003; Espinal 2010). Greek bare singulars are only compatible with an atomic interpretation. Thus, (26a) denotes reading of one newspaper; characteristically, (26c) is ungrammatical with the singular, exactly because the predicate necessitates a plural interpretation (compare with stamp collector in English). (26) a. dhiavase efimeridha read-3sg newspaper S/he read a newspaper. (reading of one newspaper) b. dhiavase efimeridhes read-3sg newspapers She read newspapers. (reading of more than one newspapers) c. mazevi *gramatosim-o/gramatosim-a gather-3sg stamp-sg/stamps-pl She collects stamps. Greek bare singulars cannot license plural interpretations in (27) and (28) (adapted from Espinal 2010, ex.4a). The second sentence in (27) is infelicitous; Greek contrasts in this respect with languages like Catalan, where bare nouns license plural interpretations in contexts like (27) (Espinal 2010). (27) psahno aftokinito; = ena mikro gia tin poli ki ena fortighaki ya ekdromes look-for-1sg car; = one small for the city and one van for trips I’m looking for a car. = a small one for the city and a van for trips. 18
Further, Greek bare nouns have atomic interpretations in contexts like (28), where their Catalan counterparts are number neutral and compatible with plural readings. 12 - 13 12 With focal stress on the verb, we can get the implicature of more flowers, accounts or houses in (28). But, this is just the fact that, any indefinite interpreted existentially is true even if more than one such entities exist. In other words, the Greek examples in (i) are no different from their English translations in this respect. 13 Espinal (2010) further notes that bare singulars in Catalan are restricted to predicates that allow an interpretation where the predicate (verb+bare singular) denotes a characterising property of the subject. This assumption explains the contrast between (ia) and (ib). (ia) involves a characterising property of the external argument, that of car-owner, while (ib) does not. Building on Espinal and McNally (2007), Espinal (2010) assumes that only ”have”-predicates are compatible with these characterising interpretations. Example (ib), then, is bad because it cannot be analysed as a ”have” predicate. (i) a. Tengo choche have car I have a car. (It could be one or more than one; I am a car-owner). b. =Limpio choche clean car I’m cleaning a car. (From Espinal 2010, ex.18) Greek examples like (ia) can certainly be interpreted as providing a characterising property of the subject. Crucially, though, bare singulars can appear as objects of a wider range of predicates, that resist this interpretation (15) but can also appear as subjects themselves (25c). Further note that while (iib) is not felicitous in the minimal context of (iia), it can be felicitous in (iii); suppose that speaker B owns a company which takes on cleaning of public buildings such as schools, churches and gyms. Assuming shared knowledge between A and B that cleaning a church is the most difficult and time consuming of these jobs, B’s reply is natural, since ”cleaning a church” is a predicate that is implicitly contrasted with ”cleaning a gym or school”. (ii) a. ti kanis? what doing-2pl What are you doing? b. =?katharizo aftokinito clean-1sg car I am cleaning a car. (iii) a. A:pu vriskete o Yanis A:where is-3sg Where is Yanis? the-nom Yanis-nom b. B:katharizi eklisia; katalavenis; tha ton dume se kamia bdomada pali B:clean-3sg church; understand-2sg; will him see-1pl in a week again 19
Page 1 and 2: Topic-strategies and the internal s
Page 3 and 4: 1 Introduction Clitic Left Dislocat
Page 5 and 6: (5) a. Fetos i moda ine apesia; idi
Page 7 and 8: evidence of reconstruction, and, th
Page 9 and 10: 3.1 Greek manipulates structure whi
Page 11 and 12: 3.2 Indefinite pronominal anteceden
Page 13 and 14: 3.3 Bare nouns As has become eviden
Page 15 and 16: systematically employs articles and
Page 17: Syntax They can be left dislocated
Page 21 and 22: You will need a skirt sewn in India
Page 23 and 24: 4.1.2 Towards a crosslinguistic typ
Page 25 and 26: semantics of Greek Number? We will
Page 27 and 28: e felicitous subjects, even under r
Page 29 and 30: However, the data below indicate th
Page 31 and 32: generalisation is that only languag
Page 33 and 34: that the definite is a noun phrase.
Page 35 and 36: excellent one (so the time we took
Page 37 and 38: (66) *den prokite na vri ti yineka
Page 39 and 40: . o Napoleodas epline (ta) piatai k
Page 41 and 42: (75) a. o Yanis psahni idravliko al
Page 43 and 44: Let us now turn to subnominal ellip
Page 45 and 46: Beautiful she is. b. belle lo sono?
Page 47 and 48: just semantically definite elements
Page 49 and 50: topic-strategies between the two la
Page 51 and 52: Alexopoulou, T. and C. Heycock (200
Page 53 and 54: Giusti, G. (1997). The categorial s
Page 55 and 56: Sells, P. (1984). Syntax and Semant

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