‘Weakly referential’ Bare NPs in
Chinese
Shen Yuan
Fudan University, Shanghai
yshen8@fudan.edu.cn
Two approaches to the semantics of bare NPs:
• Kind analysis (Carlson 1977)
• Ambiguity analysis (Gerstner and Krifka 1987,
Wilkinson 1991, Diesing 1992a)
• Bare NPs are kind-denoting in Chinese (Krifka 1995)
Interpretations of bare NPs in Chinese
• Bare nouns in Chinese can have different
interpretations: generic, definite, and indefinite .
1) a. Xiong hen congming . (generic) individual-level predicate
bear very intelligent
b. Xiong xinglai le. (definite)
bear wake up SFP
c. Wo kanjian le xiong. (indefinite) stage-level predicate
I see
ASP bear
“I saw a bear/some bears.”
Indefinite bare nouns
• bare nouns with an existential interpretation;
the indefinite interpretation of bare nouns
(Rullmann & You 2003)
• Indefinite/predicative use of bare NP;
individual (“specimen”) readings;
specimens of a kind
(Krifka 1995)
Number-neutrality
• Chinese bare nouns are number-neutral (Rullman &
You 2003)
they are neither singular nor plural, but somehow
“neutral” or “unspecified” for number, as suggested
by the somewhat cumbersome English translation
‘one or more books’. Following Corbett (2000) we will
say that bare nouns in Mandarin have GENERAL
NUMBER.
Questions
• Given stage-level predicates, are “indefinite” bare
NPs and indefinite full NPs always interchangeable?
• In cases where either an “indefinte” bare NP or an
indefinite full NP can be used, do the two forms of
NP always receive the same interpretation?
Diachronic change in the use of
bare nouns
• In Classic Chinese, bare nouns can be used freely to
encode indefiniteness, both in the subject and the
object position.
Diachronic change in the use of
bare nouns
• In the subject position:
2) …Ke cong wai lai
guest from outside come
“There came a guest.”
（example from Stratagems of the Warring States ）
In the object position:
3) … yu
zhangren (The Analects)
meet old man
“(Zi Lu) met an old man.”
Diachronic change in the use of
bare nouns
• Modern Chinese: indefinite NP required
• Indefinite use:
Bare NPs
Bare NPs, indefinite NP
(Tang dynasty)
Experiential -Guo
Compare:
4) Wo chi le (yi ge) liulian.
I eat ASP one CL durian
“I ate a durian.”
5) Wo chi guo liulian.
I eat ASP durian
“I had eating experience with the Durian kind.”
6) ?Wo chi guo yi ge liulian.
I eat ASP one CL durian
7) wo chi guo zhe ge liulian.
I eat ASP this CL durian
“I had eating experience with this durian.”
Predicative use
V. + NP
- Ni mai le shenme?
you buy ASP what
“What did you buy?”
8) a.Wo mai le shu.
I buy ASP book
“I bought a book.”
b.Wo mai le yi ben shu.
I buy ASP one CL book
“ I bought a book.”
Bare NP; indefinite full NP
V. + DE + FM+ NP
- Ni mai de shi shenme?
you buy DE FM what
“What was it that you bought?”
9) a. Wo mai de shi shu.
I buy DE FM book
“It was a book that I bought.”
b.Wo mai de shi yi ben shu.
I buy DE FM one book
“It was a book that I bought.”
Bare NP; indefinite full NP
V.+ DE+ NP (focus)
- Ni mai de shenme?
you buy DE what
“What was it that you bought?”
10) a.Wo mai de shu.
I buy DE book
“It was a book that I bought.”
b.*Wo mai de yi ben shu.
I buy DE one CL book
 bare NP;  Indefinite full NP
V.+ DE+ NP (focus)
11) a.Wo mai de shu.
I buy DE book
“What I bought was a book.”
b.Wo mai de zhe ben shu.
I buy DE this CL book
“What I bought was this book.”
bare NP; definite NP
• There is a very strong tendency for the subject
to have a definite reference, and the object to
have an indefinite reference
• (Y.R. Chao 1968:76-77)
12) a. Keren lai
le.
guest come SFP
‘The guest(s) has/have come.’
b. Lai le keren.
come ASP guest
‘There came a guest.’
13) a. Jingcha lai
le.
police come SFP
‘The police came.’
b. Lai le jingcha.
come ASP police
14) a. Taiyang chulai le.
sun
rise SFP
‘The sun rises.’
b. Chu taiyang le.
rise sun
SFP
Compare:
15) jingcha
lai
zhao guo ni.
policeman come look for ASP you
“A policeman came to see you.”
16) (you) yi ge jingcha
lai
zhao
guo ni.
there be one CL policeman come look for ASP you
“A policeman came to see you.”
17) Nuhaizi lai
le.
girl
come SFP
‘The GIRL Kind came.”
18) a. You
yi ge nuhaizi lai
le.
there be one CL gir
come SFP
b. Lai le yi ge nuhaizi.
come ASP one CL girl
‘There came a girl.’
Bare NPs in the subject position
• The subject is associated with “definiteness”
in Chinese. Bare NPs, when in the subject
position, can be definite in either one of the
two senses:
1) referring to an identifiable individual(s);
2) referring to a kind.
kind-referring bare NP in the subject position of
stage-level predicate
• The speaker can use bare NP to refer to a kind only
when he assumes that the hearer holds certain
expectation of the kind that will make the
introduction of the kind of interest to the hearer.
• When the speaker doesn’t have knowledge of
the hearer’s expectation of the kind or chooses to
hold back his knowledge of the hearer’s
expectation of the kind, the speaker chooses to
use the indefinite full NP rather than the kindreferring bare NP.
• The speaker’s (non)assumption about the
hearer’s expectation of the kind is what
distinguishes the kind-referring bare NP from the
indefinite full NP (although the two cases are
truth conditionally equivalent).
• Expectation of the kind is not equally available
in all cases. Expectation of some kinds (like
the police) may be more readily available than
other kinds (like girls). In the former case, the
expectation of the kind is shared by a large
community of people, while in the latter case,
it may only be a person’s assumption about
the idiosyncrasy of another person.
• Expectation of a kind doesn’t mean that the
kind should always be in the forefront of the
consciousness of the hearer, but rather, it
means the hearer, in order to assign a kind
reading to the bare-NP subject, should at least
be able to invoke possible expectations of the
kind that would make the introduction of the
kind relevant.
Conclusions
 With stage-level predicates, bare NPs can have either
predicative use or kind-referring use.
 In the predicative use, either bare NPs or indefinite
full NPs can be used without making a difference
in meaning.
 In the kind-referring use, bare NPs and indefinite full
NPs are either not interchangeable or subject to
differences in meaning.
Conclusions
 The kind-referring use of bare NPs patterns with the
definite NP rather than the indefinite NP. With the
kind-referring use, the bare NP refers to an atomic
kind; the definite NP refers to an atomic individual.
 The kind-referring bare NP in the subject position of
stage-level predicate is ‘definite’ (at the kind level).
Conclusions
 The kind-referring use is rather restricted. It is
either required by the semantics of the predicate, the
semantics of special constructions or made possible
by pragmatic considerations that would make the
introduction of the atomic kind relevant.
 In cases where the kind-referring use depends on
pragmatic factors, the shared knowledge of the
speaker and the hearer about the relevance of the kind
plays an important part. Some bare NPs fare better with the
kind-referring use because the relevance of the kind
is more readily invoked.
Incorporated use
19) Ta qu kan le yisheng.
he go see ASP doctor
“He went to see the doctor.”
20) Ta zai chi fan.
he ASP eat rice
“He is eating (his meal).”
21) ji
jiao le.
rooster crow SFP
“The rooster crowed (It’s daybreak).”
22) Ta hen tou teng.
he very head ache
“He had a headache.”
• “indefinite definites”/ “weak definites” in
English
read the newspaper
go to the store
listen to the radio
• bare singulars
Sue took her nephew to college/to prison/to
class
Incorporation:
Chinese: object, subject
English: object
• ‘activity’ meaning: typical or habitual activities;
idiomatic meaning
(cf. Mithun 1984, 1986, Stvan 1998,
Dayal 1999)
23) Wo qu kan le yi ge yisheng.
I go see ASP one CL doctor
“I went to see a doctor.”
24) you
yi zhi ji
jiao le.
there be one CL rooster crow SFP
“A rooster crowed.”
Kind-level reference
• Aguilar-Guevara & Zwarts (2010):
Weak definites do refer to uniquely identifiable entities, but
these are abstract objects rather than concrete ones. More
specifically, we will claim that weak definites are like singular
definite generics in having kind-level reference. In this way,
the newspaper in the example above does not refer to any
newspaper in particular, but to the general type or kind that
corresponds to the noun newspaper.
Non-BNP constructions
• perception verbs with embedded individual-level
predicates
(Zhang 2000)
25) Wo zhengzai kan *(yi ben) shu hen youyisi.
I ASP
read one CL book very interesting
‘I’m reading a book which is very interesting.’
26) Ta ting guo *(yi ge) gushi hen ganren.
he hear ASP one CL story very moving
‘He heard a story which was very moving.’
27) Wo chi guo liulian hen nanchi.
I eat ASP durian very distasteful
‘I had the experience of having durians which were distasteful.’
28) Wo kan guo jingju
hen haokan.
I watch ASP Beijing Opera very fantastic
‘I had the experience of watching Beijing Opera which was fantastic.’
29) Wo kan guo liuxingyu hen zhuangguan.
I see ASP meteor shower very grand
‘I had the experience of seeing meteor shower which was a grand
sight.’
30) ?Wo jiao guo xuesheng dou hen congming.
I teach ASP student all very smart
31) ?Ta ting guo gushi dou hen ganren.
he hear ASP story all very moving
• Farkas & Swart (2003) :
• the distinction between discourse referents
and thematic arguments
• Incorporated nominals are thematic
arguments, not discourse referents
Chinese incorporated bare NPs doesn’t
introduce discourse referents (even at the kindlevel)
• The VP (with the incorporated bare NP) refers to
a kind (i.e. activities, as contrasted to events).
• Both kind-referring bare NPs and kind-referring
VPs can be used “existentially”, but kindreference (as manifested in the choice of a kindreferring form rather than the indefinite form)
always means more meaning.
• The difference between kind-referring bare NPs
and kind-referring VPs is that in the latter case,
the incorporated bare NP doesn’t introduce
discourse referents (even at the kind level).
Conclusions
• The so-called “indefinite” bare NPs fall into three
categories: the predicative use, the kind-referring use
and the incorporated use.
• The kind-referring use of BNP is parallel to the
definite use of NP in that it introduces entities into
discourse.
• Kind-reference (to instantiations of the kind) always
carries more meaning than the indefinite reference.
Conclusions
• The choice of lexical forms involves assumption and
intention of the speaker and the hearer (even though
sentences involving the different lexical forms may
be truth-conditionally equivalent).
• Truth-condition is not all what meaning is.
Conclusions
• Methodologically speaking, the comparison between
competing forms is especially rewarding for a
language like Chinese which doesn’t have much
morphological marking.
• Thank you!