draft of November 2011

So how does Greek fit into this typology? Unlike Italian, Greek bare nouns are much more
productive. 14 However, unlike English, Greek bare nouns exclude kind interpretations, since,
as pointed out by Roussou and Tsimpli (1994), established kinds as in (38) are necessarily
definite.
(38) a. i/*∅ dinosavri ehun eksafanisti
the-nom/*∅ dinosaurs-nom have-3pl disappeared
Dinosaurs are extinct. (bare nominal ungrammatical under the kind reading)
b. ta/*∅ skilia ine katikidhia zoa
the/*∅ dogs are domestic animals
Dogs are domestic animals.
c. ?dinosavri ehun eksafanisti
dinosaurs-nom have-3pl disappeared
Dinosaurs have disappeared (bare nominal possible only under the existential
reading).
In addition, bare nominals in Greek may be singular as well as plural.
In sum, we need a three-way distinction between Italian, Greek and English. We propose
that Italian and Greek nouns are both [+pred], [-arg]. The difference lies in the element that
turns the predicative noun into an argument, i.e. on the ”nominalisor”; we propose that it
is D in Italian but Number in Greek. The first consequence of this difference is the wider
availability of bare nouns in Greek. If number is enough to turn a predicative noun into an
argument in the absence of D, bare nouns are expected to be more widespread. In addition,
if number is the nominalisor, both singular and plural bare nouns are also expected. Finally,
since Greek nouns are not [+arg] they cannot freely shift to kinds and, thus, established kinds
cannot be bare nouns (38), in contrast to English.
The strength of this view lies in the fact that it allows us to give a three way varia-
tion relying on existing analytical tools: Chierchia’s semantic parameter and the possibility
that different individuating heads (D or Num) may act as nominalisors crosslinguistically.
Of course, it raises a host of questions: why number in Greek but D in Italian? What is the
14 To give a quantitative perspective, according to Marinis (2003), around 45% of target like child Greek
involves bare nouns.
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