1. Bare plurals and indefinite determiners Spanish unos and French des

2. Facts Juán comió bizcochos. (Sp.) John ate biscuits. * The indefinite article functions as a ‘default’ argument marker for singulars. Juán comió bizcocho. (Sp.) John ate biscuit. * Juán comió un bizcocho. (Sp.) John ate a biscuit. In absence of any other determiner one has to resort to the indefinite article to use a singular noun in argument position.

3. More facts Políticos han ocupado el palacio. (Sp.) Politicians have occupied the palace. * Bare plurals are not created equal......at all Jean mangea biscuits. (Fr.) * -> How to derive this variation ?

4. The proposal There exist indefinite plural articles that compete with the bare plural.

5. Background assumptions

6. Background assumption 1 Articles don’t allow for partitive readings A student came to see me. NO: One student out of a pre-established set of students came to see me. YES: There is a student that came to see me. A student is a lawyer. (Non-generic) * (Difficult to check for Spanish un and French un given that the numeral one is a homonym.) I saw a of the relatives of Pedro. * N.B.: the same goes for bare plurals... Students are lawyers. (Non-generic) *

7. Background assumption 2 Bare plurals don’t take scope over any operators. Minnie wishes to talk to a psychiatrist. YES: There is a psychiatrist to whom Minnie wishes to talk. YES: Minnie wishes to talk to a psychiatrist (no matter which). Minnie wishes to talk to young psychiatrists. NO: There are psychiatrists Minnie wishes to talk to. YES: Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists (no matter which).

8. Reminder: the proposal There exist indefinite plural articles that compete with the bare plural.

9. Spanish unos

10. Research question Can we pretend that unos is an indefinite article despite the fact that Spanish also allows for bare plurals ? * Juán comió bizcocho. (Sp.)Juán comió un bizcocho. (Sp.) John ate biscuitJohn ate a biscuit Juán comió bizcochos. (Sp.)Juán comió unos bizcochos. (Sp.) John ate biscuitsJohn ate UNOS biscuits ¡YES!

11. Proposal for unos unos grammaticalized into an indefinite article -> no partitive readings -> semantic bleaching -> increase in frequency

12. Present day Spanish: ??? He visto a unos de los familiares de Pedro. have seen a some of the relatives of Pedro Intended: ‘I saw some of Pedro’s relatives.’ No partitive readings I take unos...otros to be a fixed expression (see also Gutiérrez-Rexach 2001 and Martí 2007). 1 1

13. Semantic bleaching 1 Present day Spanish: ??? He visto a unos de los familiares de Pedro. have seen a some of the relatives of Pedro Intended: ‘I saw some of Pedro’s relatives.’ Early Spanish: E ellas yendo se, fueron unos de los guardadores a la ciudat. And they going went unos of the guards to the city ‘And while they were going, some of the guards went to the city.’ < manuscrito escurialense I.I.6. (between 1254 and 1270)

14. Increase in frequency unos un (Corpus del Español, Mark Davies)

15. unos grammaticalized into an indefinite article -> no partitive readings -> semantic bleaching -> increase in frequency bare plurals introduce referents that are non- salient whereas unos N introduce referents that are salient (complementary distribution) -> intuition in the literature according to which bare plurals don’t introduce standard referents -> bare plurals are not allowed in positions that require salient referents -> unos N are not allowed in positions that require non-salient referents Proposal for unos

16. Intuitions about bare plurals Al principio, Juan quería restaurar muebles, At_the beginning Juan wanted restore pieces_of_furniture pero terminó vendiéndolos. but ended_up selling_them Claim by Laca (1996, 1999): bare plurals do not introduce standard discourse referents.

17. More intuitions about bare plurals En la fabricación hubo problemas técnicos in the production there_were problems technical uno de ellos era la construcción de la torre. one of them was the construction of the tower ‘In the production there were technical problems, one of them was the construction of the tower.’

18. Bare plurals and salient positions Salient position = position containing NP/DP whose referent is likely to be picked up in later discourse. By assumption the preverbal subject position is such a position. Políticos han ocupado el palacio. Politicians have occupied the palace. *

19. Unos N and non-salient positions Non-salient position = position containing NP/DP whose referent is not likely to be picked up in later discourse. The scope of negation is a non-salient position: I saw students i. They i were very happy. I didn’t see students j. ??? They j were very happy. A la reunión no asistieron unos profesores k. No estaban k contentos. At the meeting not assist UNOS professors Not were happy YES: There are some professors that didn’t attend the meeting. NO: No professors attended the meeting.

20. Proposal for unos unos grammaticalized into an indefinite article -> no partitive readings -> semantic bleaching -> increase in frequency bare plurals introduce referents that are non- salient whereas unos N introduce referents that are salient (division of labour) -> intuition in the literature according to which bare plurals don’t introduce standard referents -> bare plurals are not allowed in positions that require salient referents -> unos N are not allowed in positions that require non-salient referents

21. The proposal There exist indefinite plural articles that compete with the bare plural. Spanish: bare plural for non-salient referents unos N for salient referents

22. French des

23. Research question * Jean mangea biscuit. (Fr.)Jean mangea un biscuit. (Fr.) John ate biscuitJohn ate a biscuit Jean mangea biscuits. (Fr.)Jean mangea des biscuits. (Fr) John ate biscuitsJohn ate DES biscuits * What is it that makes des so special that it blocks the bare plural ?

24. Some appetizing facts Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists. NO: There are psychiatrists Minnie wishes to talk to. YES: Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists(no matter which). Minnie souhaite parler à des psychiatres. Minnie wishes talk to DES psychiatrists YES: There are psychiatrists Minnie wishes to talk to. YES: Minnie wishes to talk to psychiatrists (no matter which). A student is a lawyer. (Non-generic) Des étudiants sont des avocats. DES students are DES lawyers ??? Quelques étudiants sont des avocats. Some students are DES lawyers  DES N behaves as if it were a bare plural...

25. Proposal for des Faded partitives ?? Ex. of the booksThree Analyze des N as a bare partitive. A bare partitive is a partitive without upstairs determiner. Decomposition analysis of des: ‘partitive’ preposition de+ definite plural article les

26. What we know about bare partitives -> diachronic analyses (Blazer 1979, Englebert 1996, Carlier 200x) -> contrastive analysis look at similar constructions in French and other languages and see how they behave ADVANTAGE a ‘neutral’ view on what the semantics of des should be like PPs headed by a ‘partitive’ preposition, occurring in argument position and containing a definite determiner

27. What we know about bare partitives Dutch van die N ‘of those N’ (de Hoop et al. 1991, Oosterhof 2005a,b) French de ces ‘of those’ (Zribi-Hertz 2002, Roodenburg 2004) Italian di questi ‘of those’ ( Korzen 1998 ) Ik krijg nu altijd van die opmerkingen… I get now always of those remarks… Ci sono di questi stronzi. There are of these bastards On me fait toujours de ces remarques... People me make always of those remarks... PPs headed by a ‘partitive’ preposition, occurring in argument position and containing a definite determiner

28. What we know about bare partitives -> Occur felicitously in existential sentences. this has been taken to suggest that their downstairs DP is kind-referring (see e.g. Zamparelli 2002, 2005) -> Always take narrow scope. -> Don’t allow for partitive readings.

29. What we know about bare partitives Dutch van die N ‘of those N’ (de Hoop et al. 1991, Oosterhof 2005a,b) Er bestaan nog steeds van die ventjes. There exist yet still of those little_guys Minnie wil van die ventjes ontmoeten. Minnie wants_to of those little_guys meet NO: There are little guys (of this kind) Minnie wants to meet. YES: Minnie wants to meet little guys (of this kind) (no matter which). French de ces ‘of those’ (Zribi-Hertz 2002, Roodenburg 2004) Il existe de ces bonhommes. There exist of those little_guys Minnie veut rencontrer de ces bonhommes. Minnie wants_to meet of those little_guys NO: There are little guys (of this kind) Minnie wants to meet. YES: Minnie wants to meet little guys (of this kind) (no matter which).

30. What we know about bare partitives Italian di questi ‘of those’ ( Korzen 1998 ) Ci sono di questi stronzi. There are of these bastards Non abbiamo di questi libri. Not we_have of these books NO: There are books (of this kind) we don’t have. YES: We don’t have any books of this kind.

31. Bare partitives and des -> Occur felicitously in existential sentences. -> Always take narrow scope. -> Don’t allow for partitive readings. DES

32. Research question What is it that makes des so special that it blocks the bare plural ? ‘instantiations of the kind books’ = ‘books’ -> de+les livres (Fr.) French developed a special plural indefinite article that is semantically equivalent to the bare plural. -> scope facts of bare partitives= scope facts of bare plurals

33. The proposal There exist indefinite plural articles that compete with the bare plural. French: bare plural blocked by des N Spanish: bare plural for non-salient referents unos N for salient referents

34. General conclusion There exist indefinite plural articles that compete with the bare plural. French: bare plural blocked by des N Spanish: bare plural for non-salient referents unos N for salient referents Both Spanish and French have indefinite plural articles and their distribution and the distribution of bare plurals can be derived from their semantics.

36. What we know about bare partitives -> Occur felicitously in existential sentences. -> Always take narrow scope. -> Don’t allow for partitive readings. DES