‘Weakly referential’ Bare NPs in Chinese Shen Yuan Fudan University, Shanghai

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 kind- referring 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 kind- level)

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 kind- reference (as manifested in the choice of a kind- referring 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!