Numberless kinds: Evidence from Russian
Abstract
As is well-known from both descriptive and formally oriented literature, kind referring nominal phrases in Russian can appear in both morphologically singular and plural forms (Chierchia 1998; Doron 2003; Dayal 2004). The main contribution of this article is to argue that morphologically singular kind expressions are, in fact, numberless nominal phrases. In other words, we will argue that the best way to analyse these expressions, which we refer to as definite kinds, following the terminology of Borik & Espinal (2012, 2015), is by representing them as lacking both syntactic and semantic Number. We base our analysis on the theoretical postulate that, semantically, Number can be viewed as a Realization Operator converting properties of kinds into properties of objects, and that definite kinds do not activate such an operator whatsoever. We show how the analysis we propose for definite kinds can be extended to explain the peculiarities of the word order found in modified kind expressions in Russian.Keywords
kind reference, number, RussianReferences
Alexiadou, A. 2019. Morphological and semantic markedness revisited: the realization of plurality across languages. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 38(1): 123-154. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfs-2019-0004
Bailyn, J. 2002. Overt Predicators. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 10(1-2): 23-52.
Borer, H. 2005. Structuring Sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Borik, O. & Espinal, M.T. 2012. On definite kinds. Recherches Linguistiques de Vincennes 41: 123-145.
Borik, O. & Espinal, M.T. 2015. Reference to kinds and to other generic expressions in Spanish: definiteness and number. The Linguistic Review 32(2): 167-225.
Borik, O. & Espinal, M.T. 2019. Definiteness in Russian bare nominal kinds. In A. Aguilar-Guevara, J. Pozas & V. Vázquez-Rojas (eds.). Definiteness across languages, 293-318. Language Science Press, series ‘Studies in Diversity Linguistics’. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3252024
Borik, O. & Gehrke, B. 2015. An introduction to the syntax and semantics of pseudo-incorporation. In O. Borik & B. Gehrke (eds.). The Syntax and Semantics of Pseudo-Incorporation, 1-43. Leiden: Brill.
Borthen, K. 2003. Norwegian bare singulars. PhD dissertation. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Carlson, G. 1977. References to kinds in English. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Published in 1980. New York: Garland.
Chierchia, G. 1998. Reference to kinds across languages. Natural Language Semantics 6: 339-405.
Coppock, E. & Beaver, D. 2015. Definiteness and determinacy. Linguistics and Philosophy 38: 377-435.
Dayal, V. 2004. Number marking and indefiniteness in kind terms. Linguistics and Philosophy 27: 393-450.
Dayal, V. 2011. Pseudo incorporation in Hindi. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 29: 123-167.
Déprez, V. 2005. Morphological number, semantic number and bare nouns. Lingua 115: 857-883.
Doron, E. 2003. Bare singular reference to kinds. In R. B. Young & Y. Zhou (eds.). Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistics Theory XIII, 73-90. Seattle: University of Washington.
Elbourne, P. 2005. Situations and individuals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Elbourne, P. 2013. Definite descriptions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Espinal, M. T. 2010. Bare nominals in Catalan and Spanish. Their structure and meaning. Lingua 120(4): 984-1009.
Espinal, M.T. & McNally, L. 2007. Bare singular nominals and incorporating verbs. In G. Kaiser & M. Leonetti (eds.). Definiteness, specificity and animacy in Ibero-Romance languages, 45-62. Arbeitspapier 122: University of Konstanz.
Espinal, M.T. & McNally, L. 2011. Bare nominals and incorporating verbs in Catalan and Spanish. Journal of Linguistics 47: 87-128.
Farkas, D. & de Swart, H. 2003. The Semantics of Incorporation. Stanford: CSLI.
Farkas, D. & de Swart, H. 2010. The semantics and pragmatics of plurals. Semantics and Pragmatics 3: 1-54.
Frege, G. 1892. On Sense and Reference. In P. Geach, M. Black (eds.) (1952). Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 56-78. Oxford: Blackwell.
van Geenhoven, V. 1998. Semantic Incorporation and Indefinite Descriptions. Stanford: CSLI.
Gehrke, B. & McNally, L. 2015. Distributional Modification: The Case of Frequency Adjectives. Language 91(4): 837-870.
Gerstner-Link, C. & Krifka, M. 1993. Genericity. In J. Jacobs, A. von Stechow & W. Sternefeld (eds.). Syntax. An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, 966-978. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Graff Fara, D. 2001. Descriptions as predicates. Philosophical Studies 102(1): 1-42.
Grimm, S. & McNally, L. 2016. The+VPing as anaphoric event-type reference. In K. Kim, P. Umbal, T. Block, Q. Chan, T. Cheng, K. Finney, M. Katz, S. Nickel-Thompson & L. Shorten (eds.). Proceedings of the 33rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 167-175. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.
Harbour, D. 2014. Paucity, abundance, and the theory of Number. Language 90(1): 185-229.
Heim, I. 2011. Definiteness and Indefiniteness. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger & P. Portner (eds.). Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, 1025-1058. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter.
Ionin, T. 2013. Pragmatic variation among specificity markers. In S. Hinterwimmer & C. Ebert (eds.). Different Kinds of Specificity Across Languages, 75-103. Berlin: Springer.
Ionin, T. & Matushansky, O. 2006. The composition of complex cardinals. Journal of Semantics 23: 315-360.
Ionin, T. & Matushansky, O. 2018. Cardinals. The Syntax and Semantics of Cardinal-Containing Expressions. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Kagan, O. & Pereltsvaig, A. 2011. Syntax and Semantics of Bare NPs: Objects of Intensive Reflexive Verbs in Russian. In O. Bonami & P. Cabredo Hofherr (eds.). Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 8 (Proceedings of CSSP 8), 221-238. Paris: CNRS. Available from: http://www.cssp.cnrs.fr/eiss8
Kagan, O. & Pereltsvaig, A. 2013. Motivating the DP Projection in Languages without Articles. In E. Cohen (ed.). Proceedings of IATL 28 (MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 68), 167-178. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kallulli, D. 1997. Bare singulars and bare plurals: Mapping syntax and semantics. In T. Langeveld, J. Costa, R. Goedemans & R. van de Vijver (eds.). Proceedings of ConSole V, 153-168. Leiden: SOLE.
Kratzer, A. 1998. Scope or Pseudo-Scope: Are there Wide-Scope Indefinites? In S. Rothstein (ed.). Events in Grammar, 163-196. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Krifka, M. 1989. Nominal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event semantics. In R. Bartsch, J. van Benthem & P. van Emde Boas (eds.). Semantics and contextual expression, 75-115. Dordrecht: Foris.
Krifka, M., Pelletier, F. J., Carlson, G., ter Meulen, A., Link, G. & Chierchia, G. 1995. Introduction. In G. Carlson & F. J. Pelletier (eds.). The Generic Book, 1-124. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Landau, I. 2016. DP-internal semantic agreement: a configurational analysis. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34: 975-1020.
Link, G. 1983. The logical analysis of plural and mass terms: a lattice theoretical approach. In R. Bäuerle, C. Schwarze & A. von Stechow (eds.). Meaning, Use and Interpretation of Language, 303-323. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Longobardi, G. 1994. Reference and proper names. Linguistic Inquiry 25: 609-665.
Longobardi, G. 2005. Toward a unified grammar of reference. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 24: 5-44.
McNally, L. & de Swart, H. 2015. Reference to and via properties. Linguistics and Philosophy 38: 315-362.
Padučeva, E.V. 1985. Vyskazyvanije i ego sootnesennost’ s dejstvitel’nostju. Moskva: Nauka.
Partee, B. H. 1987. Noun phrase interpretation and type-shifting principles. In J. Groenendijk, D. de Jong & M. Stokhof (eds.). Studies in Discourse Representation Theory and the theory of generalized quantifiers, 115-143. Dordrecht: Foris.
Pereltsvaig, A. 2006. Small nominals. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24(2): 433-500.
Pereltsvaig, A. 2011. On Numberlessness and Paucal Numerals in Russian. Paper presented at Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics meeting, MIT.
Pereltsvaig, A. 2013. On number and numberlessness in languages without articles. In Ch. Cathcart, I-H. Chen, G. Finley, S. Kang, C. Sandy & E. Stickles (eds.). Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 300-314. Berkeley: University of California.
Pesetsky, D. 2013. Russian Case Morphology and the Syntactic Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ramchand, G. & Svenonius, P. 2008. Mapping a parochial lexicon onto a universal semantics. In T. Biberauer (ed.). The limits of syntactic variation, 219-245. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Reinhart, T. 1997. Quantifier scope: how labor is divided between QR and choice functions. Linguistics and Philosophy 20(4): 335-397.
Sauerland, U., Anderssen J. & Yatsushiro, K. 2005. The plural is semantically unmarked. In S. Kepser & M. Reis (eds.). Linguistic Evidence, 409-430. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Seres, D. 2020. The Expression of Genericity in Languages with and without Articles. Russian as Compared to English and Romance. PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Seres, D. & Borik, O. to appear. Definiteness in the absence of uniqueness: the case of Russian. In A. Blümel, J. Gajić, U. Junghanns & H. Pitsch (eds.). Advances in Formal Slavic Linguistics 2018. Language Science Press.
Seres, D. & Espinal, M.T. 2019. Russian definitional generic sentences. Glossa 4(1): 59. http://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.760
Sharvy, R. 1980. A more general theory of definite descriptions. The Philosophical Review 89(4): 607-624.
Šimík, R. & Demian, C. 2020. Definiteness, uniqueness and maximality in languages with and without articles. Journal of Semantics 37: 311-366. https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa002
Strawson, P. 1950. On referring. Mind 59(235): 320-344.
Stvan, L. 1998. The Semantics and Pragmatics of Bare Singular Noun Phrases. Ph.D. Dissertation. Northwestern University.
Tatevosov, S. 2006. Measuring Individuals, Partitioning Events: Semantics of Cumu-lative Verbs in Russian. In P. Kosta & L. Schurcks (eds.). Linguistic Investiga-tions into Formal Description of Slavic Languages, 529-544. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Trugman, H. 2008. Modifiers of Bare Nouns in Russian. Paper presented at FDSL 7.5, Moscow Independent University, December 2008.
Trugman, H. 2009. Unorthodox adjectival modification in Russian NPs. Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Slavic Linguistic Society, Zadar.
Trugman, H. 2011. Instances of posthead modification in Russian NPs. In K.K. Dębowska-Kozłowska & K. Dziubalska-Kołaczyk (eds.). On words and sounds. A selection of papers from the 40th PLM, 239-272. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Trugman, H. 2013. Naturally-atomic singular NA kinds in Russian as lexically derived. In U. Junghanns, D. Fehrmann, D. Lenertová & H. Pitsch (eds.). Formal Description of Slavic Languages 9, 325-348. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Winter, Y. 1997. Choice functions and the scopal semantics of indefinites. Linguistics and Philosophy 20(4): 399-467.
Winter, Y. 2001. Flexibility Principles in Boolean Semantics: The Interpretation of Coordination, Plurality and Scope in Natural Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Published
How to Cite
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2020 Olga Borik, M. Teresa Espinal
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
