bare plurals and indefinite determiners (in argument position)

Bare plurals and indefinite determiners (in argument position)

14 Oct. 2008 | Bert Le Bruyn

Outline

● Assumptions about articles and bare nominals

● Spanish unos and the bare pluralchallenge 1- challenge 2

● French des and the bare plural

● Conclusion

( )

( )

Assumptions

Assumptions about articles

Indefinite articles are used to set up referents in a conversational space. (de Swart & Zwarts 2007)

Slightly more formally:Indefinite articles are grammatical devices that mark the introduction of a discourse referent.

x

boy(x)

a boy

Assumptions about articles

Indefinite articles are used to set up referents in a conversational space. (de Swart & Zwarts 2007)

Slightly more formally:Indefinite articles are grammatical devices that mark the introduction of a discourse referent.

x

boy(x)

a boy

All D’s have this same ability but have extra semantic content.

Assumptions about articlesAll D’s have this same ability but have extra semantic content.

Examples:

- cardinality- specificity- partitivity- ...


Examples:


Two men came to see me.

“Two men came to see me”“Two men of a predefined set of men came to see me”

A man came to see me.

“A man came to see me”


Examples:


Test for partitivity

Two students are sick.

rationalestative properties can only be predicated of pre-introduced referents

A student is sick.??

Assumptions about bare nominals

Syntax

bare singular

[NPbook]

bare plural

[NumP –s [NPbook]]

Semantics

bare singulars cannot introduce discourse referents

bare plurals can introduce discourse referents via accommodation

(in languages that do allow for bare singulars the presence of discourse referents is inferred)

syntactic arguments have to have a corresponding discourse referent

General

Spanish unos and the bare plural

CHALLENGE 1

Facts

Spanish unos doesn’t allow for proportional readings.

?Unos estudiantes son abogados. unos students are lawyers

Intended: ‘Some students are lawyers.’

?UNOS estudiantes son abogados. UNOS students are lawyers

Intended: ‘Some students are lawyers.’

Previous analyses

Why is it that unos behaves in this way ?

What is it that makes unos special compared to other determiners ?

Previous analyses



Martí 2007

Syntactic / semantic decomposition of indefinites

- number- existential quantification- positive polarity- partitivity implicature

unos algunos

Claim:

Alg- adds the partitivity implicature. Unos lacks alg- and therefore does not give rise to partitive readings.

Previous analyses



Martí 2007

Question that remains:

Why is unos the only determiner that needs alg- to get a partitive reading ?

Dos estudiantes son abogados.ok

Algodos estudiantes son abogados.*

-> Back to where we were...

Previous analyses



My analysis



Unos is the default plural indefinite determiner in Spanish.

Unos is the indefinite plural article in Spanish.

-> in as far as indefinite articles are grammaticalized devices for introducing discourse referents they are not expected to give rise to partitive readings

Parallel with the singular indefinite article:

? A student is a lawyer.

Argumentation

-> in as far as indefinite articles are grammaticalized devices for introducing discourse referents they are not expected to give rise to partitive readings

Can we show that unos underwent a grammaticalization process comparable to that of an indefinite article ?

-> what does the grammaticalization process of an indefinite article look like ?

-> what predictions does this make for unos ?

-> are these predictions borne out ?

Prediction 1

1. The indefinite article loses part of its semantic content

-> partitive reading possibleOne student came to see me.

-> partitive reading impossibleA student came to see me.

Prediction: unos did allow for partitive readings in Early Spanish.

Prediction 1 (cont.)


Following Gutiérrez-Rexach (2001) I assume non-partitive Ds cannot appear in the upstairs D position of (standard) partitives.

Present day Spanish:

??? He visto a unos de los familiares de Pedro. have seen a some of the relatives of PedroIntended: ‘I saw some of Pedro’s relatives.’

Early Spanish:

E ellas yendo se, fueron unos de los guardadores a la ciudat.And they going went unos of the guards to the city‘And while they were going, some of the guards went to the city.’

< manuscrito escurialense I.I.6. (between 1254 and 1270)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Symbol_OK.svg


Two potential problems:

- only 1 example It might be an accident...

- it’s a translation The original text might have had some influence...



-> Are there any texts that contain more than one instance of unos de los ?

YES

Alfonso XGeneral Estoria +/- 1270

AnonymousManuscrito Escurialense +/- 1260

Casiodoro de ReinaBiblia Reina-Valera +/- 1570

5

8

6translations!


-> Can we safely assume that there is no real interference of the original text ?


YES

-> Compare examples to the source text

Manuscrito Escurialense Vulgata

Reina-Valera Textus Receptus(Stephanus 1550)


Two potential problems:



( )

Prediction 2

2. Important gain in frequency of the indefinite article

Prediction 2 (cont.)un

uno

una

Corpus del Español, Mark Davies


Prediction: important gain in frequency for unos.


unos


unas



Prediction 3

3. The indefinite article, in the beginning of its grammaticalization process, is used to mark the introduction of salient discourse referents (cf. Stark 2002, Blazer 1979).

Prediction 3


difficult notion

● implies a comparisonbare nominals vs. nominals with the indefinite article

● how to decide on salience of a discourse referent ?objective criterion: is it picked up ?



Corpus study: El Cid (late 12th early 13th century)

verse 1-500 (approx. 3900 words)

# bare singulars: approx. 150

# objects: approx. 31

-> compare singulars with and without ind. art.

# singulars with indefinite article: approx. 20



objects in epitetha 5

‘fixed’ expressions

dar salto ‘to attack’ 2

aver miedo ‘to be scared’ 1

aver menester ‘to need’ 1

aver gracia ‘to have grace’ 1

mass objects 3

meter mano ‘to touch/grab’ 1

object of verb in subjuntivo 3

object of verb in future 4

object of verb in imperative 3

object of infinitive following ‘want to’ 2

object in generalization 1

others 5

v. 41, 58, 78, 175, 439

v.30, 244

v.469

v.135

v.40

v.29, 345, 345

v.500

v.20, 192

v.249, 382, 386, 450

v.25, 273, 420

v.36, 194

v.126

v.125, 285, 333, 351, 428

Bare singulars


How many are referred back to ?

#1 3%


Prediction: Unos, in the beginning of its grammaticalization process, is used to mark the introduction of salient discourse referents.


4 66%

Singulars with indefinite article


Corpus study: El Cid

-> compare plurals with and without unos

verse 1-500 (approx. 3900 words)

# bare plurals: approx. 54


?Prediction: Unos, in the beginning of its grammaticalization process, is used to mark the introduction of salient discourse referents.

# plurals with unos: 0


the whole of El Cid

# objects: 2

Prediction 3 (preview)


Corpus study: Amadís de Gaula 1482-1492


The whole of Amadís de Gaula:

# bare plurals : ??

Prologue, CH I-III

# bare plurals : 6 in argument position




Prologue, CH I-III

# bare plurals : 6 in argument position


#1 16%





The whole of Amadís de Gaula:


#22 39%

not very convincing...

What went wrong ?

unos paños 8 ‘clothes’ plurale tantum

unos arboles 18 ‘trees’ locus amoenus

26+

only 2 out of these 26 got picked up

topos in medieval literature

If we eliminate those from our list...

the percentage changes dramatically...

... to 71 %

Intermediate summary



un unos

+

+ by 1569 unos had started losing part of its partitive potential (algunos had become far more frequent in partitives).

+ unos is parallel to the indefinite article in not allowing partitive readings

Unos seems to function as a plural indefinite article.

+ we have reasons to believe unos was first used to introduce salient discourse referents



Intermediate summary

Apparent problem:

Spanish allows for bare plurals but not for bare singulars.

Unos doesn’t seem to be the perfect match of the singular indefinite article.

Empirical question:

do bare plurals introduce discourse referents ?

CHALLENGE 2

Facts + previous analysis

Al principio, Juan quería restaurar muebles, At_the beginning Juan wanted restore pieces_of_furniture

pero terminó vendiéndolos. but ended_up selling_them

‘In the beginning, Juan wanted to restore pieces of furniture, but he ended up selling them.’

Claim by Laca (1996, 1999): bare plurals do not introduce standard discourse referents, only their descriptive content can be picked up.

More facts

En la fabricación hubo problemas técnicos in the production there_were problems technical

uno de ellos era la construcción de la torre. one of them was the construction of the tower

‘In the production there were technical problems, one of them was the construction of the tower.’

How to account for the tendency of bare plurals to not be picked up without stating that they don’t introduce discourse referents ?

My analysis

bare plurals introduce discourse referents that are low in salience

-> bare plurals are not the standard choice to introduce discourse referents

-> they are only used to introduce discourse referents that are not likely to be picked in later discourse (for whatever reason)

If this analysis makes sense it would:

-> account for Laca’s intuition

-> account for the facts

-> leave for unos the role of indefinite plural article (being the standard default det to introduce DRs)

CH 2

CH 1

My analysis

Basic intuition

Bare plurals introduce discourse referents that are not likely to be picked up.

similar intuition about Spanish bare plurals in Laca & Tasmowski (1994)

similar intuition about Hindi bare singulars in Dayal (1992, 1999, 2004)

-> interestingly both Laca and Dayal end up stating that no discourse referents are being introduced

-> this does not account for the intuition

My analysis

Basic intuition


Centering Theory

(i) Jeff helped Dick wash the car.

Walker, Joshi & Prince (1998)

Forward-Looking Center all discourse entities evoked in an utterance

Jeff, Dick, the car

members are ranked according to discourse salience

Jeff > Dick - the car

(ii) He washed the windows. He = Jeff

Preferred Center member of FLC ranked highest

My analysis

Basic intuition


Centering Theory

Walker, Joshi & Prince (1998)

Forward-Looking Center members are ranked according to discourse salience

How is discourse salience decided ?

Subject > Object > Other

(i) Jeff helped Dick wash the car.

(ii) He washed the windows.

Standard

Addition a certain types of NPs/DPs can be independently marked for (a degree of) salience

My analysis

Basic intuition


Centering Theory


(iii) I been on this one case now about eight months [...]

indefinite-this in 86% of the cases the referent it introduces is referred to again within a few clauses

Addition b this N comes with high salience

My analysis

Basic intuition


Centering Theory


Addition c all normal DPs come with normal salience

Addition d bare nominals come with low salience

Addition b this N comes with high salience

My analysis

discourse entity 1

discourse entity 2

discourse entity 3

...

Grammatical Function

unos

this

bare nominals

Information Structure

discourse entity 3

discourse entity 1

discourse entity 2

...

Forward-Looking Center (unranked)

Forward-Looking Center (ranked)

...

My analysis

v u

Juan (v)

plural (u)

manzana (u)

compró (v,u)

v u

John (v)

apple (u)

bought (v,u)

v u

Juan (v)

plural (u)

manzana (u)

compró (v,u)

Juan compró unas manzanas.

John bought this apple.

Juan compró manzanas.

John bought applesJohn bought UNOS apples

My analysis

v u

Juan (v)

plural (u)

manzana (u)

compró (v,u)

v u

John (v)

apple (u)

bought (v,u)

v u

Juan (v)

plural (u)

manzana (u)

compró (v,u)

Juan compró unas manzanas.

John bought this apple.

Juan compró manzanas.

Does this make any solid predictions?

John bought applesJohn bought UNOS apples

My analysis


Problem:

There is variation in acceptability because judgements are affected by potentially different expectations people can have about the relevance of the entity referred to in the discourse. (Dayal 2004)

-> Look for contexts that force or block discourse referents from being picked up.

-> It’s in these contexts we should find clear contrasts between the bare plural and unos N.

My analysis


1. Unos will be disallowed in non-salient positions

the discourse referent corresponding to a DP occurring in a non-salient position cannot be picked up in subsequent discourse

DEF

My analysis


object in scope of negationEX

Checking prediction

A la reunión no asistieron unos profesores.At the meeting NEG attended UNOS professors

NEG < unosNEG > unos*

1. Unos will be disallowed in non-salient positions


the discourse referent corresponding to a DP occurring in a salient position is necessarily picked up in subsequent discourse

DEF

My analysis


2. Bare plurals will be disallowed in ‘salient’ positions

My analysis


Contreras (1991), Olarrea (1996), Zagona (2002)

Los estudiantes compramos un coche.

The students bought-1pl. a car.

[IPpro[IPLos estudiantes [INFLcompramos ] [VP t t un coche ] ] ]jj iik

EX

for Los estudiantes to have any meaning in this sentence pro has to take los estudiantes as an antecedent

-> the Spanish preverbal subject position is a salient position

to be felicitous the DR of Los estudiantes has to be picked up


My analysis


Políticos han ocupado el palacio.*

Checking prediction

Politicians have occupied the palace.



SUMMARY

Summary

Challenge 1

Why does unos behave the way it does ?

Challenge 2

How to account for the tendency of bare plurals to not be picked up without stating that they don’t introduce discourse referents ?

It became an article

What about the bare plural ?

The bare plural is not the default way to introduce discourse referents.

By appealing to the notion of discourse salience.

dia

chro

nic

syn

chro

nic

Summary (cont.)

bird’s-eye-perspective

Pre-Spanish Modern Spanish

bare singularsbare plurals

sing. ind. articleplur. ind. article

bare singularsbare plurals

difference is accounted for by my assumption that bare plural can and bare singulars cannot introduce discourse referents

- number- existential quantification- positive polarity- partitivity implicature

unos

Martí (2007)

Salient DRs introduced by:

A tentative analysis of the evolution of unos

EvolOT

- assumptions:

1. bare nominals cannot give rise to partitive readings

2. the salience of bare nominals can be set to both “normal” and “low”

3. the salience of full DPs can never be set to “low”

4. algunos has a meaning component that cannot be expressed by unos nor by the bare plural

EvolOT

bare plural

unos

algunos

neu

tral

, lo

w s

alie

nce

neu

tral

, n

orm

al s

alie

nce

pro

po

rtio

nal

“alg

un

os”

/


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/P_no_red.svg







EvolOT

For each form/meaning pair: don’t link this form with this meaning

- constraints

EvolOT

# plural nouns - # plural determiners → 64%

# algunos / algunas determiner → 23%

# unos / unas determiner → 13%

32 32

7 6

12 11

32 1

38 0

18 11

- initial frequencies


/4

EvolOT

# plural nouns - # plural determiners → 64%

# algunos / algunas determiner → 23%

# unos / unas determiner → 13%

32 32

7 610 10

32 0

43 0

16 104 0

- initial frequencies

French des

Research question

*Jean mangea biscuit. (Fr.) Jean mangea un biscuit. (Fr.)John ate biscuit John ate a biscuit

Jean mangea biscuits. (Fr.) Jean mangea des biscuits. (Fr)John ate biscuits John ate DES biscuits

*

How is it possible that des took over all functions of the bare plural ?

Some appetizing facts

Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists.

NO: There are psychiatrists Minnie wishes to talk to.

YES: Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists(no matter which).

Minnie souhaite parler à des psychiatres.Minnie wishes talk to DES psychiatrists

YES: There are psychiatrists Minnie wishes to talk to.

YES: Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists (no matter which).

A student is a lawyer. (Non-generic)

Des étudiants sont des avocats.DES students are DES lawyers

???

Quelques étudiants sont des avocats.Some students are DES lawyers

DES N behaves as if it were a bare plural...

Proposal for des

Faded partitives ??Ex. of the booksThree

Analyze des N as a bare partitive.

A bare partitive is a partitive without upstairs determiner.

Decomposition analysis of des:

‘partitive’ preposition de + definite plural article les

What we know about bare partitives

-> diachronic analyses (Blazer 1979, Englebert 1996, Carlier 200x)

-> contrastive analysis

look at similar constructions in French and other languages and see how they behave

ADVANTAGE

a ‘neutral’ view on what the semantics of des should be like

PPs headed by a ‘partitive’ preposition, occurring in argument position and containing a definite determiner


Dutch van die N ‘of those N’ (de Hoop et al. 1991, Oosterhof 2005a,b)

French de ces ‘of those’ (Zribi-Hertz 2002, Roodenburg 2004)

Italian di questi ‘of those’ (Korzen 1998)

Ik krijg nu altijd van die opmerkingen…I get now always of those remarks…

Ci sono di questi stronzi.There are of these bastards

On me fait toujours de ces remarques...People me make always of those remarks...

PPs headed by a ‘partitive’ preposition, occurring in argument position and containing a definite determiner


-> Occur felicitously in existential sentences.

this has been taken to suggest that their downstairs DP is kind-referring (see e.g. Zamparelli 2002, 2005)

-> Always take narrow scope.

-> Don’t allow for partitive readings.


Dutch van die N ‘of those N’ (de Hoop et al. 1991, Oosterhof 2005a,b)

Er bestaan nog steeds van die ventjes.There exist yet still of those little_guys

Minnie wil van die ventjes ontmoeten.Minnie wants_to of those little_guys meet

NO: There are little guys (of this kind) Minnie wants to meet.

YES: Minnie wants to meet little guys (of this kind) (no matter which).

French de ces ‘of those’ (Zribi-Hertz 2002, Roodenburg 2004)

Il existe de ces bonhommes.There exist of those little_guys

Minnie veut rencontrer de ces bonhommes.Minnie wants_to meet of those little_guys

NO: There are little guys (of this kind) Minnie wants to meet.

YES: Minnie wants to meet little guys (of this kind) (no matter which).


Italian di questi ‘of those’ (Korzen 1998)

Ci sono di questi stronzi.There are of these bastards

Non abbiamo di questi libri.Not we_have of these books

NO: There are books (of this kind) we don’t have.

YES: We don’t have any books of this kind.

Bare partitives and des

-> Occur felicitously in existential sentences.

-> Always take narrow scope.

-> Don’t allow for partitive readings.

DES

Research question

‘instantiations of the kind books’= ‘books’

-> de+les livres (Fr.)

French developed a special plural indefinite article that is semantically equivalent to the bare plural.

-> scope facts of bare partitives = scope facts of bare plurals

How is it possible that des took over all functions of the bare plural ?

The End

References

LiteratureBlazer, E.D., 1979, The historical development of articles in Old French, PhD dissertation, University of Texas │Contreras, H., 1991, “On the position of subjects”, in Perspectives on Phrase Structure, ed. Rothstein, S., New York: Academic Press │ Dayal, V., 1992, SALT II │ Dayal, V., 1992, SALT IX │ Dayal, V., 2004, L&P │ Delfitto D. & J. Schroten, 1991, Probus 3.│ Gutiérrez-Rexach, J., 2001, Probus 13. │ Hopper, P. & E. Traugott, 1993, Grammaticalization, CUP. │ Laca, B., 1996, ‘Acerca de la semántica de los plurales escuetos del español, Madrid: Espasa Calpe. │ Laca & Tasmowski 1994, Lingvisticae Investigationes 18. │ Martí, L., 2007, Natural Language Semantics [online first] │ Olarrea, A., 1996, Pre- and Postverbal Subject Positions in Spanish, PhD dissertation, University of Washington │ Stark, E., 2002, Journal of Semantics 19. │ Swart, H. de & J. Zwarts, 2007, Lingua. │ Prince, E., 1981, “On the inferencing of indefinite-this NPs”. │ Villalta, E., 1994, Plural indefinites in Spanish and distributivity [unpublished manuscript]. │ Walker, Joshi & Prince (1998), Centering Theory in Discourse, OUP. │ Zagona, K., 2002, The syntax of Spanish, CUP.

Corporahttp://corpus.rae.es/cordenet.htmlhttp://www.biblegateway.comhttp://www.corpusdelespanol.org

bare plurals and indefinite determiners (in argument position)

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