Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
Brazilian Bare Phrases: Plurality, and Kinds.
Roberta PIRES DE OLIVEIRA CNPq/UFSC
ropiolive@gmail.com
Aims:
1. To have a better understanding of the nominal system in spoken Brazilian Portuguese;
2. To investigate the Bare Singular and the Bare Plural;
3. To account for agreement and the semantics of noun phrases;
4. To investigate the Bare singular and the Bare plural in the scope of quantifiers
(comparatives).
Hypotheses:
1. Plural morphology is highly significant in BrP;
2. Plurality is (atomic) sums;
3. The Bare Plural is highly specialized;
4. The Bare Singular denotes the kind (mass are kinds as well), whereas the Bare Plural
denotes a plurality.
0. Preliminaries
Spoken BrP distinguishes singular and plural. The plural must be marked in the leftmost
element1:
(1)
a.
Os menino(s)
Thes boy(s)
c.
* O meninos
the boys
b.
O menino
the boy
It distinguishes between mass and count nouns:
(2)
a.
* duas areias / * Eu vi areias
Two sands / I saw sands.
b.
duas menina(s)
two girls
With numerals there is no need of marking plurality in the noun, (2.b). Thus, the plural mark in
the noun seems to be a concord phenomenon.
Descriptively, it has both a singular indefinite article and a plural indefinite:
(3)
a.
b.
1
Eu vi um menino.
I saw a/one boy
Eu vi uns menino(s).
I saw some boys.
See Schere & Naro (1997), among others.
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
Comments: (i) ‘um’ is an indefinite and a numeral; (ii) it is unclear whether ‘uns’ is an article.
And a Bare Singular and a Bare Plural! This goes against the generalization that says that
if a language has an indefinite article (singular and plural), it should not have bare phrases.
BrP has all the alternatives in the nominal domain overtly given.
1. The Bare Singular and the Bare Plural
The Bare Singular is not a disguised plural.
(i)
(ii)
Plural morphology must be marked in the left most expression.
Schmitt & Munn (2002). Plurality in some nouns is accompanied by vocalic
alternations: ovo /ovo/ vs ovos /óvos/
If the Bare Singular were a disguised plural we would expect the plural form without the
morpheme, but that is not what we get:
(4)
a.
b.
João comprou /ovo/
* João comprou /óvo/
João bought eggs.
1.1
Comparison
Rothstein & Pires de Oliveira (2013) show that the bare singular and the bare plural
behave differently in comparison sentences. The bare plural behaves as the bare plural in
English: they only raise comparison by cardinality:
(5)
a.
b.
João tem muitas pedras. (card/*vol)
John has many stones. (card/ *vol)
English does not have the bare singular. In comparison, flexible nouns in English do not behave
as the bare singular in BrP because flexible nouns in mass syntax only allow for a mass
interpretation, whereas in such a context, the bare singular is ambiguous:
(6)
a.
b.
João tem mais pedra do que o Paulo. (card / vol)
John has more stone than Peter (*card / vol)
The bare noun ‘pedra’ allows for a counting interpretation, which is blocked with stone.
Moreover, the flexible behavior in English is restricted to some nouns.
The bare singular differs from atomic mass nouns, such as furniture, because they have a
count counterpart – ‘pedra’/ ‘pedras’, but ‘mobília’/* ‘mobílias’. However, it behaves as furniture
because it gives rise both to cardinal and non-cardinal interpretations, (6.a).
It is not the case that the bare singular is a plural without morphology. The plural
morpheme ‘-s’ must appear in the leftmost element of the phrase. (7.a) is ungrammatical:
(7)
a.
* João tem muita pedras.
João has much stones
b.
João tem muitas pedra.
João has many stone
Thus, (6.a) is not the result of dropping the plural morpheme.
Moreover, ‘muito’ combines with mass nouns, whereas ‘muitos’ does not:
(8)
a.
João comprou muita areia.
João bought much sand
b.
* João comprou muitas areia(s).
João bought many sands
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
Thus, ‘muito’ is a mass quantifier. (8) shows that it combines with the bare singular, engendering
a cardinal and a volume interpretation as furniture type mass nouns do:
(9)
João tem muito livro pra carregar. (card/vol)
João has much/many book to carry.
1.2
Pluralities
As expected, plural phrases may be interpreted inclusively or exclusively; though most of
the time they are interpreted exclusively (generalized implicature):
(10)
Você tem filhos?
Do you have kids / kid ?
Tenho um / # Não, tenho um.
I have one / No, I have one.
The same is true with the Bare Singular:
(11)
Você tem filho?
Tenho um / # Não, tenho um.
The Bare Plural implies plurality whereas the Bare Singular does not:
(12)
a.
João comprou livros.
João bought books
b.
João comprou livro.2
João bought book.
(12.a) is infelicitous in a situation where the speaker knows that João has bought just one book.
This is not the case with (12.b). Thus, the bare singular does not imply plurality.
This asymmetry reappears in contexts where the bare plural shows sensitivity to
pluralities; the bare singular is not sensitive to plurality, as shown in (13.b):
(13)
a.
O João tem # narizes romano(s).
João has Roman noses
b.
João tem nariz romano.
João has Roman nose.
Moreover, only the bare plural combines with ‘numeroso’ (numerous), a predicate that selects for
plurality:
(14)
a.
b.
* Pernilongo é numeroso nessa época do ano.
Mosquito is numerous in this time of the year.
Pernilongos são numerosos nessa época do ano.
Mosquitos are numerous in this time of the year.
If “a plural is always odd when sum values are pragmatically excluded from its domain of
reference” (Farkas & de Swart (2010)), then the bare singular is not plural. Farkas & de Swart’s
proposal that the plural has to denote sums explains the Bare Plural, but not the Bare Singular. If
it were a plural predicate, why it cannot combine with ‘numeroso’ (numerous)? Why is it
insensitive to plurality?
1.3
2
Different grammars?
Whether ‘livro’ in (11.b) is an argument or is incorporated will be left as an open issue here.
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
One could imagine that the Bare Singular and the Bare Plural belong to different
grammars: the Bare Singular is spoken BrP whereas the Bare Plural is written. Perini (2010)
claims that the sentences below have the same meaning and differ with respect to the variety:
(15.b) is written language:
(15)
a.
b.
Menina é estudiosa.
Meninas são estudiosas
Girls are studious.
Comment: Generic contexts. It is hard to find differences, but:
(16)
a.
b.
# Tio gosta de pizza. (lawlike)
Tios gostam de pizza. (generalization)
Moreover, some predicates only accept the Bare Plural (14.b). And there are contexts
where the Bare Plural is more natural; the Bare Singular is marked:
(17)
a.
b.
Crianças estão brincando na rua.
Children are playing on the street.
# Criança está brincando na rua.
There are interpretations which are achieved only with the Bare Plural, i.e. subkinds. The Bare
Singular is never interpreted as sub-kinds:
(18)
a.
b.
Baleias estão acabando. (kind; subkind)
Whales are on the verge of extinction
Baleia está acabando. (only kind)
Finally, even a brief search in corpora shows that both forms co-exist: Search on blogs, January
18:
comprou
Comprar
Definite ‘o livro’
982
2.160
Indefinite ‘um livro’
1.180
20.500
Bare Singular ‘livro’
118
6.630
Bare Plural ‘livros’
25
3.670
2. Theoretical Explanation
Descriptively, the absence of the morpheme ‘-s’ in the noun phrase may indicate a singular
predicate (1.b), mass denotation, (6.a), (8) and (9), a singular denotation (13.b) or an inclusive
plurality (11), whereas the plural always denotes plurality (inclusive or exclusive). The bare
singular is not sensitive to plurality, (13.b), and it does not combine with a plural predicate (14).
Thus, the absence of plural morphology has different interpretations.
Our proposal is that plural morphology denotes (semantic) pluralities, i.e. sets of
(atomic) sums, and triggers plural agreement. The absence of plural morphology triggers singular
agreement, and semantically it denotes a singular individual (a kind), but the noun does not have
to be a singular predicate. Mass phrases, for instance, trigger singular agreement because they
denote the kind, but they are not singular predicates:
(19)
Água faz bem pra saúde.
Water makes well to healthy.
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
Water is good for healthy.
Horn’s maxim is about the presence versus absence of overt morphology. In this
particular sense, the plural form is marked, because it is overtly signaled, as argued by Farkas and
de Swart (2010), and it must denote plurality. In this particular sense, the absence of plural
morphology is weak and the plural is semantically strong, because it covers less situations: the
plural denotes plurality, so it can only be used if (atomic) sums are involved.
However, a semantic singular predicate is stronger than the plural predicate, as claimed
by Sauerland (2008). Compare:
(20)
a.
b.
O menino saiu. n = 1
Os menino(s) saíram. n  1
(20.b) may be true in a situation where just one boy left and in a situation where more than one
boy left, whereas (20.a) can only be true in a situation where just one boy left. Thus, the singular
is more informative than the plural.
Our proposal relies on Rothstein & Pires de Oliveira (2013), and Rothstein (2010).
Root nouns are unsorted lattice structures, that is, there are no semantic atoms. They are
sum structures. To my mind this is not number neutrality. Farkas & de Swart understand number
neutrality as “in principle, may denote in any subdomain of the lattice” (6:19), but this definition
also covers the notion of inclusive pluralities. An inclusive plural phrase may denote atoms or
sums of atoms. They also claim that number neutrality means “truly insensitive to the atom/sum
divide” (6:22), thus they are mass like. Unsorted lattice structures are primitive structures in the
sense that there is no semantic distinction between sums and atoms, the grammar does not see
this distinction (but that does not mean that cognitively there are no atoms). Thus, it is neither
mass nor count (yet).
Counting is a recursive operation that applies to some root nouns. BrP distinguishes
between count and mass nouns via morphology: mass nouns cannot be pluralized nor counted
(2). Counting is an operation that pairs an individual and a cardinal:
[[Pc]] = {<a, 1>, <b, 1>, <c, 1>, <a+b, 2>, <a+c, 2>, <b+c, 2>, <a+b+c, 3>}
Count predicates denote sets of pairs of an individual (including a plural individual) and a
cardinal. The plural morpheme denotes the plural count predicate; it does not matter whether it
is attached to the determiner or to the noun.
At the lowest level of a derivation, root nouns denote unsorted lattices (not singular nor
plural, not mass nor count). If the count operation applies, resulting in atoms and pluralities,
then the combination with numerals is allowed. Root nouns cannot combine with numerals,
precisely because they do not denote semantic atoms. Numerals require sets of atoms (Ionin &
()). Thus, ‘menina’ must be a plural count predicate in (2.b):
(21)
2
count
menina(s)pl
meninaroot
The absence of plural morphology in the nominal phrase introduces a presupposition of
singularity which is satisfied if the cardinality is one:
(22)
o
meninos
count
meninoroot
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
Bare phrases are the result of a type shift (Chierchia 1998). The down operator only
applies to cumulative predicates. Thus, it applies to root nouns and to plural predicates. In either
case, it denotes the maximal sum in every world (an intensional individual). Thus, (12.a) and
(12.b) have different structures; roughly represented in (23):
(23)
a.
comprou
count
livrosk
livropl
comprou
livroroot
livrok
livroroot
Assume Landman & Rothstein’s (2011) view that kinds may be the theme of episodic predicates.
In (23.a), the kind is derived from a count predicate, thus, it induces a plural interpretation; thus,
it is not felicitous in a situation where (the speaker knows that) just was book was bought. In
(23.b), the kind is derived from a root noun, thus, it is felicitous in a situation that involves just
one book (it is felicitous even if the speaker knows that only one book was bought).
Since the Bare Singular does not denote a plurality, it cannot combine with ‘numeroso’
(numerous). Some predicates are restricted to semantic plurality, others are not. ‘Comparar’ (to
compare) is not; it cannot combine with singular predicates, and the Bare Singular is not a
singular predicate either:
(24)
Carlos compara currículo.
Carlos compares curricula.
The Bare Singular denotes a kind, and kinds may have many instances, just one instance
or no instances in a particular world (there are no dodos in our world). Thus, it is felicitous in
contexts where more than one individual is involved, as well as in contexts where just one
individual is involved. Thus the Bare Singular is not sensitive to plurality, and we explain (13.b).
2.1
Comparison and quantifiers
In (5.a) the Bare Plural denotes a plural predicate, thus, it cannot but be comparing
cardinalities, given the semantics of the count noun. 3
How do we explain (6.a) and (9)? How do we arrive at the cardinal reading?
Barner and Snedeker’s (2005) show that furniture has a cardinal interpretation, though it
cannot be counted:
(25)
a. John has more furniture than Bill.
b. *How many more?
c. *John has one more furniture/two more furnitures than Bill.
Rothstein & Pires de Oliveira (2013) claim that the cardinal reading with the Bare
Singular in BrP, (6.a), and (9), as well as with object mass nouns as furniture or mobília results from
measuring. Thus, count syntax forces quantity evaluations in terms of cardinalities, while mass
nouns do not require it, but allow it depending on the noun. The mechanism for counting is,
however, not the same.
Pires de Oliveira and Mendes de Souza (2013) distinguish bare singulars from singular predicates which in
comparisons coerce a partitive readings as in:
(i)
João tem mais mesa que Pedro.
(ii)
John has more table than Peter.
3
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
Rothstein (2010, 2012) claims that the fundamental contrast at the root of the
mass/count contrast is the distinction between measuring and counting: counting is putting
entities in one-to-one correspondence with the natural numbers, whereas measuring is assigning
an overall quantity a value on a scale. Mass nouns denote sums which can be measured in this
way. They do not allow a set of atoms to be identified grammatically, and thus the linguistic
operation of counting is impossible - three pieces of furniture / *three furnitures – as well as
pluralization - * furnitures.
While mass nouns do not allow a set of atoms to be identified grammatically and
counting is impossible, operations such as comparison may evaluate the relative sizes of sets in
terms of their cardinality if the context makes the set of natural atoms salient. This explains the
cardinal interpretation of (6.a), (9) and (25). When a mass predicate is naturally atomic - furniture
and ‘livro’ (book) -, the cardinal scale is one option that can be made salient by context for
comparisons and other measurements. Thus, the question in (26) can be translated as “which
quantity of furniture has a higher value on the cardinal scale”:
(26) Who has more furniture?
Answering this question may involve implicit counting, but may also involve estimation of
cardinalities without counting.
Count nouns in BrP always have a mass counterpart, since all root nouns have a mass
realization, but only some have a count realization. Predicates that denote naturally atomic
individuals tend to be interpreted via cardinality if no other contextual clues are given, but allow
for comparison along other dimensions.
2.2
Hungarian
As shown by Schvarcz (in preparation), Hungarian has two question words: hány (how
many), which goes with count nouns, and mennyi (how much), which goes with mass nouns:
(27) a. Mennyi
rizs-(e)-t
vettél?
How much rice--object marker buy- Past-2ndSG
‘How much rice did you buy?’
b. * Három / Három kiló-t.
Three / Three kilo-obj. marker
‘Three kilos’
Count nouns in Hungarian are not marked plural when they occur with numbers, as shown in
the examples (27.b) and (28.c) below:
(28) a. Hány
könyv van
a táskádban?
How many book is there the bag+possesive your+suffix in
‘How many books are there in your bag?’
b. Csak három.
‘Only three’.
c. # Három kiló.
Three kilo.
‘Three kilos.’
The measure answer in (28.c) is pragmatically odd, since hány (how many) asks for a cardinal
answer. Mennyi (how much) combines with a bare noun ‘könyv’ (book). Crucially, in these cases,
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
the appropriate answer is either a measure expression (29.b) or a cardinal quantity judgment
which makes use of a number:
(29) a. Mennyi
könyv-e-t
tudsz cipelni?
How much book–LV-obj.marker you are able to carry?
‘What quantity of book can you carry?’
b. Három kiló-t.
Three kilo-obj. marker.
‘Three kilos.’
c. Három-nál
nem többet Mert
Three- comparative not more because
különben elszakad a táskám.
otherwise break the bag+possesive my
‘Not more than three, otherwise my bag would break.’
d. Hárm-(a)-t
three-PL
‘Three’
Assuming that mennyi (how much) induces a mass usage, volume and cardinal answers are
acceptable with the mass counterpart of the count noun in Hungarian too, as ‘muito’. Whereas
hány (how much) induces a count interpretation, as the plural morphology in the quantifier
(muito-S (how many)) does in BrP, only allowing for cardinal readings.
3. Cross-linguistic variations
In Chinese, root nouns are always available for the down operator, and the same is true for
BrP. But BrP has articles and plural morphology. Chinese only has classifiers. Thus, counting is
morphologically marked in BrP, whereas in Chinese classifiers are obligatory. English has articles
and plural morphology, but no Bare Singular. Pires de Oliveira & Rothstein (2011) suggest that
English is an either/or language: either the root noun is available for the down operator or the
count operation applies, but not both. Thus, English has the Bare Plural, but no Bare Singular.
In French, the root noun is never available, thus there are no bare phrases. In Yudja (Lima
(2011)), counting is always available.
References
Barner, D. & Snedeker, J. 2005. “Quantity judgements and individuation: Evidence that mass
nouns count”. Cognition. 97: 41-66.
Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. “Plurality of mass nouns and the notion of 'semantic parameter'”. In
S. Rothstein (ed.) Events and Grammar, Dordrecht: Kluwer. 53-103.
Farkas, D. & de Swart, H. 2010. The semantics and pragmatics of plurals. Semantics & Pragmatics.
Vol. 3, 1.24.
Ionin, T. & Matushanksy, O. 2006. The Composition of Complex Cardinals. Journal of Semantics
23: 315-360.
Lima, Suzi. 2012. Numerals and the universal packager in Yudja (Tupi). Proceedings of the Sula to
appear.
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measuring, in press.
Leiden, January 22nd, 2014.
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MIT Working Papers in Linguistics: Cambridge, MA.
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57-83.
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Pessoa: Idéia. 93-114.
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