Notes on Bare Nouns and Differential Object Marking in Spanish

Notes on Bare Nouns and Differential Object Marking
in Spanish and Romanian
Alexandru Mardale
INALCO de Paris – ECO
[email protected]
Assuming a property-analysis of B(are) N(ominals)s (McNally 1992, 1995, van Geenhoven
1995, Dobrovie-Sorin 1997), and considering that D(ifferential) O(bject) M(arking) is
excluded with property-denoting nouns (Cornilescu & Dobrovie-Sorin 2007, Mardale 2007),
the following contrast comes to mind:
In Spanish, but not in Romanian, DOM is possible with certain modified B(are) P(lural)s.
This contrast is illustrated by the following examples:
(1)
a.
b.
(2)
a.
b.
*Detuvieron a hincha(s).
(Spanish; adapted from Leonetti 2003)
‘They arrested supporter(s).’
Detuvieron a hinchas peligrosos del Atlético.
‘They arrested dangerous Atlético supporters.’
*Au arestat pe suporter(i).
(Romanian; same translations)
*Au arestat pe suporteri periculoşi ai lui Atletico.
Our analysis of this contrast will be based on the answers to the following questions:
(i) from a syntactic perspective, what is the relation of DOM (a) to the distinction
between NPs, NumPs and DPs (Dobrovie-Sorin & al. 2006), (b) to argument position
(Longobardi 1994 and (c) to pseudo-incorporation (Massam 2001)?
(ii) from a semantic perspective, (a) what kind of reading have marked BPs?; (b)
should we assign different semantic types to marked BPs vs. unmarked BNs?; (c) how should
we define the process of semantic incorporation for marked BPs (van Geenhoven 1996,
Farkas & de Swart 2003)?
References
Dobrovie-Sorin, C. 1997. Classes de prédicats, distribution des indéfinis et la distinction
thétique-catégorique. Le gré des langues 20.
Dobrovie-Sorin, C. & al. 2006. Noms nus, nombre et types d’incorporation. In C. DobrovieSorin (ed.), Noms nus et généricité, Paris : Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.
van Geenhoven, V. 1996. Semantic Incorporation and Indefinite Descriptions. Doctoral
Dissertation. Univ. Tubingen. Published in 1998. Standford : CSLI Publications.
Leonetti, M. 2003. Specificity and Differential Object Marking in Spanish. Catalan Journal of
Linguistics 3, 75-114.
Longobardi, G. 1994. Reference and Proper Names. Linguistic Inquiry 25, 609-666.
Mardale, A. 2007. Les prépositions fonctionnelles du roumain: étude comparative. Thèse de
doctorat. Université Paris 7 & Université de Bucarest.
Massam, D. 2001. Pseudo Noun Incorporation in Niuean. Natural Language and Linguistic
Theory 19.1, 153-197.
McNally, L. 1995/2004. Bare Plurals in Spanish are Interpreted as Properties. In G. Morrill et
D. Oehrle (eds), Proceedings of ESSLI Workshop on Formal Grammar, 197-222.