Comparative Syntax of the Balkan Languages (Oxford ... - Cryptm.org

148 DALINA KALLULLIobjects, are in these languages incompatible with bare plurals. Examples arelove, respect, admire, adore, and so on. Generic readings in Balkan (andRomance) languages require an overt determiner, namely, the definitedeterminer for plural noun phrases and either the definite or the indefinitedeterminer for singular noun phrases.My proposal rests on the claim that generically and existentially interpretedbare plurals differ with respect to the D feature: generic bare plurals are DPswith a morphologically null D, whereas existential bare plurals are NPs altogetherlacking a D projection. Consequently, generic and existential bare pluralsdiffer with respect to their specificity feature: generic bare plurals are [+specific]and individual denoting, whereas existential bare plurals are [-specific] andproperty denoting.What does it mean for generic bare plurals to be individual denoting? Itmeans that generic bare plurals denote kinds (in nonquantified contexts), as in /love dogs, or (in quantified contexts) denote (quantified) instantiations of kinds,as in (Most) dogs are clever. This means that generic bare plurals are eitherconstants or variables depending on whether they name a kind or (in quantifiedcontexts) denote instantiations of it. I claim that existential bare plurals, on theother hand, denote properties. As such, they are not constants or variables butpredicates. I argued above that bare singulars denote properties as well.What, then, is the difference (if any) between bare singulars and existentialbare plurals, given that all languages that have bare singulars also have existentialbare plurals? While both (52a) and (52b) necessarily have an event-relatedreading, it seems to me that the difference between bare singulars and existentialbare plurals has to do with event reference. Thus, while the meaning of thesentence in (52a) can be rendered as in (52c) or (52d), the minimally different(52b) containing a(n existential) bare plural instead of the bare singular can berendered as in (52d), not as in (52c). Thus, (52a) can, though need not, besynonymous with (52b), whereas (52b) can only mean that Eva might engage inseveral events of newspaper reading. Strictly speaking, there is no "small" eventin which a person can read more than one newspaper at a time. Hence, it is as ifthe bare plural in (52b) would scope over the whole VP. " Whether this is aninstance of genuine wide scope of the bare plural or some kind of a pseudoscopeeffect this paper will not contribute to assessing.(52) a.b.c.d.EvaEvaEvawillwillwillEva willTomorrowevent.Tomorrowreading.morgentomorrowmorgenEva wants toZeitungnewspaperZeitungenlesen.readlesen.tomorrow newspapers readEva will engage in (at least) one newspaper- readingengage in several events of newspaperI claim that existential bare plurals are the plural counterparts of bare singulars.On one hand, the fact that bare singulars occur as direct objects of only those