1. Recoordinating bare coordination December 9 th, 2010 Going Romance Bert Le Bruyn & Henriëtte de Swart

2. 2 Spoon was The phenomenon of bare coordination I saw catsdogsandI saw Context We had to set the table for the queen. We arranged one crystal goblet, one silver spoon, two antique gold forks and two platinum knives. Forks and knives were equally dirty indefinite interpretation definite interpretation Plurals Singulars was set to the right of the plate * set to the right of the plate * Gobletspoonwereandonly definite interpretation Heycock & Zamparelli (2003) ??? There were goblet and spoon on the table.

3. 3 The phenomenon of bare coordination Heycock & Zamparelli (2003) coordinatednot coordinated bare singulars bare plurals indefinitedefiniteindefinitedefinite

4. 4 The phenomenon of bare coordination  Why is it bare singulars cannot occur bare whereas coordinated bare singulars can ?  When and why do bare coordinated nouns get a definite reading?

5. 5 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

6. 6 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

7. 7 New facts coordinatednot coordinated bare singulars bare plurals indefinitedefiniteindefinitedefinite

8. 8 New facts  Et là on arrive dans un petit village où il y a école et point d’eau. And there we arrive in a small village where there is school and water point.  He had pad and pencil to picture the whole event.  There were goblet and spoon on the table. > potentially bad because of the sequence V pl N sing ???

9. 9 Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles.

10. 10 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

11. 11 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

12. 12 Roodenburg (2004) The analysis in a nutshell  Premise 1: Bare Coordinated NPs are plural.  Conclusion: Bare coordinated NPs are allowed in argument position.  Premise 2: Bare Plural NPs are allowed in argument position. > Cat and dog were fighting.

13. 13 Roodenburg (2004) The analysis in a nutshell  As for the definite readings: they’re akin to functional readings of bare plurals (Condoravdi 1994) > Ghosts haunted the campus. Students were aware of the danger.

14. 14 Roodenburg (2004) Problem  Functional readings of bare plurals are limited to the subject position. Definite readings of coordinated bare nominals are not. > Ghosts haunted the campus. We warned students about the danger. > During the debate about the new law, the Prime Minister didn’t succeed in bringing proponents and opponents closer together.

15. 15 Heycock & Zamparelli (2003) The analysis in a nutshell  Focus on deriving the definite reading of bare coordinated nominals.  Proposal: allow for N-to-D raising of the coordinated phrase. DP CoordP NP1 and NP2

16. 16 Heycock & Zamparelli (2003) Problems  Allowing for N-to-D raising for coordinated NPs begs the question why it wouldn’t be allowed for non- coordinated NPs.  N-to-D raising is often used for proper names but proper names arguably have a different semantics from definite DPs. > Why is Goblet was set to the right of the plate bad ? > Why can I saw Cat only mean that I saw someone by the name Cat?

17. 17 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

18. 18 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

19. 19 Our analysis in a nutshell > Blocked by I read a book and I read the book. > Why is Goblet and spoon were set to the right of the plate good ? > Not blocked!

20. 20 Our analysis in a nutshell coordinatednot coordinated bare singulars bare plurals indefinitedefiniteindefinitedefinite > Classic blocking account: indefinite bare singulars are blocked by definite bare singulars are blocked by definite bare plurals are blocked by the definite plural article the definite singular article the indefinite singular article

21. 21 Our analysis in a nutshell coordinatednot coordinated bare singulars bare plurals indefinitedefiniteindefinitedefinite > Not so classic blocking account: A, the sing and the plural don’t apply at the coordination level. As a consequence they cannot be taken to block indefinite or definite readings of coordinated bare nominals.

22. 22 Our analysis in a nutshell A, the sing and the plural don’t apply at the coordination level. >Indirect evidence un homme et une femme (a male man and a female woman)1760000 un homme et femme (a male man and woman)696 une femme et une fille (a female woman and a female girl)885 une femme et fille (a female woman and girl)15 les hommes et les femmes (the men and the women)3030000 les hommes et femmes (the men and women)361000 yahoo.fr 11/11/2010 Generalization:  Strong preference for repetition of the determiner;  Suggests that the repetition of the determiner is the default;  Suggests that the cases in which there is no repetition involve elided Ds.

23. 23 Our analysis in a nutshell A, the sing and the plural don’t apply at the coordination level. >Direct evidence Dog and cat were fighting.> bare coordination can trigger plural agreement > there is a level of syntactic representation at which CoordPs have to have plurality specified (see also de Vries 1992) > If Ds were to apply to CoordPs we would predict CoordPs to be able to take a plural article, even if both conjuncts are singular. > This is however not the case. *Dog and cat was fighting.

24. 24 Our analysis in a nutshell les hommes et les femmes the men and the women3030000 les hommes et femmes the men and women361000 les homme et femme the man and woman99 les hommes et les garçons the men and the boys2570 les hommes et garçons the men and boys175 les homme et garçon the man and boy1 les femmes et les filles the women and the girls164000 les femmes et filles the women and girls16000 les femme et fille the woman and girl18 yahoo.fr 11/11/2010

25. 25 Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles. Basic insight Determiners don’t apply at the coordination level. Implementation Classic blocking...

26. 26 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

27. 27 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

28. 28 From ‘informal’ blocking to OT DP NumP CoordP AND NumP NP N NumP NP N DP N-domain CoordP-domain N.B. Coordination can apply at the DP, NumP or NP-level. NN

29. 29 From ‘informal’ blocking to OT a. Fdr Mark discourse referents b. Fpl Mark reference to a group For each type of functional projection we have a faithfulness constraint. DP NumP c. Fdef Mark definiteness We add an extra one for D projections. DP For the two domains we add a markedness constraint. d. *FunctN Don’t mark functional structure in the N-domain e. *FunctCoordP Don’t mark functional structure in the CoordP-domain. N-dom CoordP-dom

30. 30 From ‘informal’ blocking to OT a. Fdr Mark discourse referents b. Fpl Mark reference to a group For French and English the following ranking holds: c. Fdef Mark definiteness e. *FunctCoordP Don’t mark functional structure in the CoordP-domain. d. *FunctN Don’t mark functional structure in the N-domain.

31. 31 From ‘informal’ blocking to OT Depending on the level at which coordination applies the ranking derives the following possibilities: the cats and the dogsDP level coordination cats and dogsNumP level coordination cat and dogNP level coordination Testable illegal structures: I saw *(a) cat.Bare singular arguments several cat and dog Ds applying at CoordP Untestable (?) illegal structures: I saw cat and dogs (?) (meaning I saw cats and dogs) Number at CoordP

32. 32 Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles. Basic insight Determiners don’t apply at the coordination level. Implementation Classic blocking...and its formalization in OT.

33. 33 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

34. 34 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

35. 35 The semantics of coordination  We assume the basic semantics of coordination at the level of sets is that of set intersection. XY  Bare coordination never has this basic semantics. X and Y > Bride and groom were extremely happy.  There was an extremely happy person who was both bride and groom.

36. 36 The semantics of coordination  Two types of coordination: > coordination with ‘joint’ readings > coordination with ‘split’ readings  Bare coordination always concerns coordination with ‘split’ readings.  Our challenge will be to derive split readings without giving up the basic intuition of coordination being an instance of set intersection.

37. 37 The semantics of coordination How to go about this? > Enrichment of and > First enrichment: turn and into a ‘matchmaker’ P Q  ( ) PQ x E E x()() > Based on a proposal by Yoad Winter (p.c.)

38. 38 The semantics of coordination bride groom (, )

39. 39 The semantics of coordination (, ) QxEExP

40. 40 The semantics of coordination > Enrichment of and > First enrichment: turn and into a ‘matchmaker’ P Q  ( ) PQ x E E x()() > Second enrichment: add a function that turns (singular) couples into plural individuals. > Based on a proposal by Yoad Winter (p.c.) P Q  ( ) PQ x E E x()() RtoI Relations to Individuals RtoI(R) = {x  y : R(x,y)} How to go about this?

41. 41 The semantics of coordination bride and groom

42. 42 The semantics of coordination bride and groom > Bride and groom were extremely happy. > the unique plural individual consisting of a bride and groom was extremely happy > extremely_happy(  )

43. 43 Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles. Basic insight Determiners don’t apply at the coordination level. Implementation Classic blocking...and its formalization in OT. The semantics of bare coordination Enriched version of an intersective semantics.

44. 44 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap

45. 45 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap shortcut to conclusion

46. 46 Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default coordinatednot coordinated bare singulars bare plurals indefinitedefiniteindefinitedefinite coordinatednot coordinated bare singulars bare plurals indefinitedefiniteindefinitedefinite

47. 47 Cat and dog were fighting. > Implicature of uniqueness If there had been more cats and dogs, we could have told you so. Given that we did not tell you, you can assume that there was only one cat and one dog. > The effect of this implicature is almost indistinguishable from the contribution of the definite article. Even though our semantic account predicts both a definite and an indefinite reading, pragmatically the indefinite reading is so close to the definite reading that one gets the impression there’s only a definite reading. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default

48. 48 Predictions... coordinated bare plurals should not have any preference for definite readings.... the preference for definite interpretations should be cancelable. Given that the implicature depends on the nouns being singular... Given that we assume the default definite interpretation is an implicature... > This is arguably what we find (see Heycock & Zamparelli). > This is what we have demonstrated for existential contexts. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default

49. 49 More predictions... the definiteness effect should not only be found for coordinated nouns but also for uncoordinated singular nouns in languages that have a singular/plural distinction but no articles Given that the implicature arises because of the competition between bare singulars and plurals... > Languages like Hindi and Russian have indeed been argued to only allow for definite readings for bare singulars, despite their acceptability in existential environments (see Dayal 2004). Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default

50. 50 More predictions... the definiteness effect should not only be found for coordinated nouns but also for uncoordinated singular nouns in languages that have a singular/plural distinction but no articles... uncoordinated plural nouns in these languages should not show any preference for definite readings Given that the implicature arises because of the competition between bare singulars and plurals... > Languages like Hindi and Russian have indeed been argued to only allow for definite readings for bare singulars, despite their acceptability in existential environments (see Dayal 2004, Geist 2010). > Uncoordinated bare plurals in Hindi and Russian have indeed been argued to allow both definite and indefinite readings (see Dayal 2004). Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default

51. 51 One more prediction... there should be no definiteness effect in Chinese comparable to the one in Hindi and Russian Given that the implicature arises because of the competition between bare singulars and plurals... > Bare nominals in Chinese have indeed been argued to freely allow both for a definite and an indefinite reading (see Yang 2001). N.B. This implicature account can be formulated both under the analysis of the singular/plural contrast of Farkas & de Swart (2010) and the one in the tradition of Krifka (1989) (see a.o. Sauerland et al. 2005). Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default

52. 52 New facts Previous analyses Our analysis in a nutshell Our analysis in OT The semantics of and Surprise Bonus Roadmap to conclusion

53. 53 The phenomenon of bare coordination  Why is it bare singulars cannot occur bare whereas coordinated bare singulars can ?  When and why do bare coordinated nouns get a definite reading? > Articles don’t apply at the coordination level > No blocking of bare coordinated forms > Semantically, definite/indefinite readings are available through type-shifting > Pragmatically, bare singulars prefer ‘definite’ readings

54. 54 References  Dayal, 2004, ‘Number marking and (in)definiteness in kind terms’, Linguistics and Philosophy 27, 393-450.  Farkas & de Swart, 2010, “The semantics and pragmatics of plurals”, Semantics and Pragmatics 3.  Geist, 2010, “Indefinite NPs without indefinite articles”, presentation at SUB 2010.  Heycock & Zamparelli, 2003, “Coordinated bare definites”, Linguistic Inquiry 34, 443-469.  Heycock & Zamparelli, 2005, “Friends and colleagues”, Natural Language Semantics 13, 201-270.  Krifka, 1989, “Nominal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event semantics”, in: Bartsch, van Benthem & van Emde Boas (eds.), Semantics and contextual expression, Foris.  Roodenburg, 2004, Pour une approche scalaire de la déficience nominale, Ph.D. Dissertation, Universiteit van Amsterdam.  Sauerland, Anderssen & Yatsushiro, 2005, “The plural is semantically unmarked”, in: Kepser & Reis (eds.), Linguistic evidence, de Gruyter.  Yang, 2001, Common nouns, classifiers, and quantification in Chinese, Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers University.  Zwarts, 2009, Bare constructions in Dutch, Ms., Utrecht University.

55. 55 This presentation builds on work that we carried out with Vera Mulder and Paulien Hesselink. We hereby gratefully acknowledge their contribution. http://www.hum.uu.nl/medewerkers/b.s.w.lebruyn/weakreferentiality/index.htm

56. On the elided D analysis of single determiner coordinations

57. 57 Problems for the elided D analysis  This incompatible man and woman.  ??This incompatible man and this incompatible woman. Heycock & Zamparelli (2005)  My five maternal aunts and uncles were all Methodists.  My five maternal aunts and my five maternal uncles were all Methodists. default: 5 individuals default: 10 individuals

58. 58 Problems for the elided D analysis > All disambiguating cases involve some kind of modification. > Modification overrules the restriction on determiners at the coordination level. > Can be linked to a general constraint on modification of bare nominals (see Zwarts 2009).

59. 59 Problems for the elided D analysis  This soldier and sailor agreed.  *Ce soldat et marin étaient d’accord.  The soldiers and sailors agreed.  Les soldats et marins étaient d’accord. If we assume French doesn’t allow the non-repetition of determiners, why would there be a difference between singular and plural determiners ? Heycock & Zamparelli (2005)

60. 60 un homme et une femme (a male man and a female woman)1760000 un homme et femme (a male man and woman)696 une femme et une fille (a female woman and a female girl)885 une femme et fille (a female woman and girl)15 les hommes et les femmes (the men and the women)3030000 les hommes et femmes (the men and women)361000 yahoo.fr 11/11/2010 338000 uk.yahoo.uk 05/12/2010 restricted to UK pages 801000 276 1250 1580000 26100 Problems for the elided D analysis FRENCH ENGLISH This is a strong argument iff: > French shows no preference for repetition of plural determiners. > A language like English shows no difference in the repetition of singular and plural determiners.

61. 61 Conclusion  There is still some work to be done to make a waterproof case for the elided D analysis.  Crucially however there are no knock-down arguments against it and we do have a strong argument against an analysis that takes determiners to apply to the coordination of two bare singulars.