Redefining Indefinites (eBook)

Foreword .- Introduction . Chapter 1: Why indefinites? . 1 Typology of DPs . 1.1 Referential DPs . 1.2 Quantified DPs . 1.2.1 Tripartite structures . 1.2.2 Generalized quantifiers . 1.3. Indefinite DPs . 2 The representation of indefinite DPs .       2.1 Indefinites and existential quantification . 2.2 Indefinites as free variables . 2.3 Indefinites as choice functions .  2.4 Indefinites as Skolem terms . 2.5 Indefinites and properties . 2.6 Indefinites as existential generalized quantifiers over amounts . 2.7 Conclusion . 3 Semantic properties of nominal determiners . 3.1 Conservativity . 3.2 Intersectivity . 3.3 Symmetry . 3.4 Proportional determiners . 3.5 Monotonicity . 3.6 The semantic characterization of indefinites . 4 The interpretation of indefinites .          4.1 The interpretation of indefinites and presupposition . 4.1.1 Assertion and presupposition . 4.1.2 Presupposition of existence and assertion of existence . 4.1.3 Presupposition and partitivity . 4.2 Distributive and collective readings . 4.3 Scope ambiguities . 4.4 Specific / non-specific / generic readings . Conclusion .- Chapter 2: Bare Noun Phrases . 1 Bare nouns phrases across languages . 1.1 An overwiew of crosslinguistic variation . 1.2 The distribution of bare NPs in Romanian, Spanish and Catalan . 1.3 The syntactic structure of bare NPs . 2 Bare plurals are not the plural counterparts of singular indefinites . 2.1 Opacity . 2.2 Scope . 2.3 Aspect . 2.4 Anaphoric relations . 3 Count bare singulars are not the singular counterparts of bare plurals .       3.1 Distribution . 3.2 Crosslinguistic variation . 3.3 Interpretation: narrow scope with respect to negation . 3.4 Conclusions . 4 The semantics of bare plurals . 4.1 Bare plurals and reference to kinds .     4.1.1 The Carlsonian analysis . 4.1.2 Bare plurals in Romance languages are not kind-referring .4.2 Bare plurals and property-denotation . 4.2.1 Existential predicates . 4.2.2 Accounting for Carlson’s observations regarding scope . 4.2.3 Problems .  4.2.4 The property-analysis of count bare singulars .      4.3 Bare plurals and VP-level existential closure . 4.3.1 VP-level existential closure and scope . 4.3.2 VP-level existential closure and aspect . 4.3.3 Problems with generic objects . 4.4 Bare plurals as amount-referring expressions . 4.4.1 Individuals vs. amounts . 4.4.2 Bare plurals as existential generalized quantifiers over amounts . 5 Existential predicates and entity predicates . 5.1 Individual-level and stage-level predicates . 5.2 Space localization . 5.3 Some apparent problems . 6 French indefinites headed by du / de la / des . 6.1 Bare plurals and bare mass NPs . 6.2 Parallelisms between du / de la / des French indefinites and bare NPs in the other Romance languages . 6.3 On the Strong Reading of des Indefinites . 6.4 Mass nouns and the impossibility of individuation . 7 Bare NPs in predicate positions . 7.1 A subclass of nouns . 7.2 Distributional differences between singular indefinites and bare singulars . 7.3 Higgins' typology revisited . 7.4 Semantic composition . 7.5 Copular sentences built with singular indefinites as equatives . 7.6 Explaining the contrasts between bare singulars and indefinite singulars . 7.6.1 Small clauses and secondary predication . 7.6.2 Alternation between ce ‘that’ and il ‘he’ . 7.6.3 Modifying PPs for names of role . 7.6.4 Quantified subjects . 7.6.5 Lifetime effects . 7.6.6 Spatial and temporal modification .  7.6.7 Attributive uses of indefinite singulars . 7.7 Modified bare nouns . 7.8 The argument structure of relational nouns . 7.9 Comparison with other approaches . Conclusion .- Chapter 3: Existential sentences . 1 Constraints on existential sentences . 1.1 Existential sentences have property-denoting arguments . 1.1.1 The semantic composition of existential sentences according to McNally (1998) . 1.1.2 Negative existential sentences . 1.2 Problems with the property-analysis . 1.2.1 Definite DPs . 1.2.2 Adjectives . 1. 3. Our proposal in a nutshell . 2 Existential sentences in French . 2.1 The locative existential construction . 2.2 The eventive construction . 2.3 The enumerative construction . 2.4 Conclusions . 3 Existential sentences cannot have individual variables as arguments . 3.1 Heim's (1987) constraint . 3.2 Quantified DPs in existential sentences . 3.2.1 Quantification over types rather than tokens . 3.2.2. Representation . 3.3 Existential sentences inside relative clauses . 3.3.1 Amount Relatives . 3.3.2 Existential sentences in French relative clauses . Conclusion .- Chapter 4: The ambiguity of indefinites: towards a denotational definition of the weak/strong distinction . 1 Weak and strong indefinites . 2 Weak indefinites . 2.1 Weak indefinites as individual variables bound by existential closure . 2.2 Weak indefinites as property-denoting expressions . 2.3 Weak indefinites as amount referring expressions . 3 Strong indefinites . 3.1 Quantificational strong indefinites . 3.2 Non-quantificational strong indefinites . 3.2.1 Non-partitive strong readings . 3.2.2 Non-quantificational strong indefinites and wide scope effects . 3.3 The two strong readings of indefinites and the denotation of DPs . 4 The weak/strong distinction and presuppositionality . Conclusion .- Chapter 5: Disambiguating indefinites . 1 Disambiguating indefinites: DP-internal factors .1.1 Lexical specification of plural indefinites: partitivity, contrastivity and distributivity . 1.2 Partitive indefinite DPs . 1.3 Modified cardinals . 1.4 Prepositional accusatives: denotation type and specificity . 1.4.1 Romanian . 1.4.2 Spanish . 1.4.3 Conclusions . 2 Information structure and the disambiguation of indefinites . 2.1 Indefinites in the Topic position are presuppositional . 2.2 Non-topical presuppositional indefinites . 2.3 Only indefinites in Topic position are quantificational . 2.4 Indefinites at the left periphery . Conclusions .- Chapter 6: The Scope of Indefinites . 1 Scope: Current analyses . 1.1 Scope and quantifier raising . 1.2 Scope ambiguity or ambiguous indefinites? . 1.3 Intermediate scope or referential dependency? . 2 Scope and type of denotation . 2.1 On the obligatory narrow scope of weak Indefinite . 2.1.1 Bare nouns . 2.1.2 Modified cardinals in object position . 2.2 Inverse scope and individual-type denotation . 3 The distributivity of indefinites: quantification or distributive predication? . 3.1 The distributivity of inverse scope specific indefinites . 3.2 The quantificational status of indefinites in subject position . 4 Referential dependency and Skolem functions . Conclusions .-  Chapter 7: Genericity, (In)Definiteness and Bare Nouns . 1 Generic indefinites: quantification over events and over individuals . 1.1 Quantification over events and indirect binding of indefinites . 1.2 Adverbial quantification over individuals . 1.3 Syntax-semantics mapping rules . 1.4 Two types of generic readings for indefinites . 2 Characterizing sentences with habitual predicates . 2.1 Adverbial quantification over events . 2.2 Adverbial quantification over individuals . 2.3 Proposal: quantification over individuals combined with quantification over times . 2.4 Conclusions . 3 The genericity of singular indefinites . 3.1 GEN and the nomicity constraint . 3.2 Pseudo-generic indefinites in object positions . 4 The genericity of French des-indefinites . 4.1 The individuation constraint on quantification . 4.2 The generic readings of plural indefinites built with symmetric nouns . 4.3 The pseudo-generic reading of plural indefinites . 4.4 Conclusions . 5 The genericity of English bare nouns . 5.1 The genericity of French plural and mass ­indefinites and the genericity of English bare nouns . 5.2 Adverbs of quantification and kind-predication . Conclusions .- Chapter 8: Dependent Indefinites in Donkey-Sentences . 1 Dependency and donkey-sentences . 1.1 Indefinite DPs and universal quantification . 1.2 Indefinite DPs, free variables and unselective binding . 1.3 Symmetric and asymmetric readings of donkey-sentences . 2 Dependent indefinites . 2.1 Dependency on a situation . 2.2 Dependency on a quantified DP . 3 Dependency and proportion . 3.1 Symmetric and asymmetric readings . 3.2 Weak and strong asymmetric readings . 4 Dependency and reference . Conclusion .- Appendix . 1 Egli’s (1979) solution . 2 E-type analyses . 2.1 E-type pronouns: Evans (1980) . 2.2 A formal analysis with lambda Operators . Conclusion .- Bibliography .- Subject Index