Bare coordination: a new case for cross-linguistic availability of covert type-shifting

1. Bare coordination: a new case for cross-linguistic availability of covert type-shifting

2. Recoordinating bare coordination Bert Le Bruyn & Henriëtte de Swart

3. The phenomenon of bare coordination Context We had to set the table for the queen. We arranged one crystal goblet, one silver spoon, two antique gold forks and two platinum knives. Plurals I saw cats and I saw dogs indefinite interpretation Forks and knives were equally dirty definite interpretation Singulars * * Goblet was set to the right of the plate and spoon Spoon was were only definite interpretation set to the right of the plate ??? There were goblet and spoon on the table. Heycock & Zamparelli (2003)

4. The phenomenon of bare coordination not coordinated coordinated indefinite definite indefinite definite bare singulars bare plurals Heycock & Zamparelli (2003)

5. The phenomenon of bare coordination Why is it bare singulars cannot occur bare whereas coordinated bare singulars can ?  When and why do bare coordinated nouns get a definite reading?

6. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

7. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

8. New facts not coordinated coordinated indefinite definite indefinite definite bare singulars bare plurals

9. New facts: English We had to set the table for the queen. We arranged one crystal goblet, one silver spoon, two antique gold forks and two platinum knives. Goblet and spoon were set on the right of the plate. (Heycock & Zamparelli 2003) We had to set the table for the queen. We arranged one crystal goblet, onesilver spoon, two antique gold forks and two platinum knives. Forks and knives were equally dirty. (Heycock & Zamparelli 2003) There wereforks and knives on the table. (Heycock & Zamparelli 2003) He hadpad and pencilto picture the whole event.

10. Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles.

11. Can you replicate the data for your language?

12. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and • Surprise Bonus

13. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and • Surprise Bonus

14. Roodenburg (2004) The analysis in a nutshell  Premise 1: Bare Coordinated NPs are plural. > Cat and dog were fighting.  Premise 2: Bare Plural NPs are allowed in argument position.  Conclusion: Bare coordinated NPs are allowed in argument position.

15. Roodenburg (2004) The analysis in a nutshell  As for the definite readings: they’re akin to functional readings of bare plurals (Condoravdi 1994) > Ghosts haunted the campus. Students were aware of the danger.

16. Roodenburg (2004) Problem  Roodenburg predicts bare coordination always to behave on a par with bare plural. > Ghosts haunted the campus and we had to warn the students, the faculty and the rest of the staff. ??It turned out though that students were already aware of the danger. > Ghosts haunted the campus and we had to warn the students, the faculty and the rest of the staff. It turned out though that students and faculty were already aware of the danger.

17. Heycock & Zamparelli (2003) The analysis in a nutshell  Focus on deriving the definite reading of bare coordinated nominals.  Proposal: allow for N-to-D raising of the coordinated phrase. DP CoordP NP1 and NP2

18. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

19. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

20. Our analysis in a nutshell not coordinated coordinated indefinite definite indefinite definite bare singulars bare plurals > Classic blocking account: indefinite bare singulars are blocked by definite bare singulars are blocked by definite bare plurals are blocked by the indefinite singular article the definite singular article the definite plural article

21. Our analysis in a nutshell not coordinated coordinated indefinite definite indefinite definite bare singulars bare plurals > Not so classic blocking account: A, thesing and theplural don’t apply at the coordination level. As a consequence they cannot be taken to block indefinite or definite readings of coordinated bare nominals.

22. Our analysis in a nutshell A, thesing and theplural don’t apply at the coordination level. >Indirect evidence yahoo.fr 11/11/2010 Generalization:  Strong preference for repetition of the determiner; Suggests that the repetition of the determiner is the default; Suggests that the cases in which there is no repetition involve elided Ds.

23. Our analysis in a nutshell A, thesing and theplural don’t apply at the coordination level. >Direct evidence Dog and cat were fighting. > bare coordination can trigger plural agreement *Dog and cat was fighting. > there is a level of syntactic representation at which CoordPs have to have plurality specified (see also de Vries 1992) > If Ds were to apply to CoordPs we would predict CoordPs to be able to take a plural article, even if both conjuncts are singular. > This is however not the case.

24. Our analysis in a nutshell yahoo.fr 11/11/2010

25. Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles. Basic insight Determiners don’t apply at the coordination level. Implementation Classic blocking ...

26. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and • Surprise Bonus

27. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and • Surprise Bonus

28. From ‘informal’ blocking to OT DP CoordP-domain NumP CoordP AND N N DP DP NumP NumP NP NP N N N-domain N.B. Coordination can apply at the DP, NumP or NP-level.

29. From ‘informal’ blocking to OT For each type of functional projection we have a faithfulness constraint. DP a. Fdr Mark discourse referents b. Fpl Mark reference to a group NumP We add an extra one for D projections. c. Fdef Mark definiteness DP For the two domains we add a markedness constraint. N-dom • d. *FunctN • Don’t mark functional structure in the N-domain • e. *FunctCoordP • Don’t mark functional structure in the CoordP-domain. CoordP-dom

30. From ‘informal’ blocking to OT For French and English the following ranking holds: e. *FunctCoordP Don’t mark functional structure in the CoordP-domain. a. Fdr Mark discourse referents b. Fpl Mark reference to a group c. Fdef Mark definiteness • d. *FunctN • Don’t mark functional structure in the N-domain.

31. From ‘informal’ blocking to OT Depending on the level at which coordination applies the ranking derives the following possibilities: DP level coordination the cats and the dogs NumP level coordination cats and dogs NP level coordination cat and dog Testable illegal structures: Bare singular arguments I saw *(a) cat. several cat and dog Ds applying at CoordP Untestable (?) illegal structures: Number at CoordP I saw cat and dogs (?) (meaning I saw cats and dogs)

32. Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles. Basic insight Determiners don’t apply at the coordination level. Implementation Classic blocking ... and its formalization in OT.

33. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

34. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

35. The semantics of coordination  We assume the basic semantics of coordination at the level of sets is that of set intersection. X Y X and Y  Bare coordination never has this basic semantics. > Bride and groom were extremely happy.  There was an extremely happy person who was both bride and groom.

36. The semantics of coordination  Two types of coordination: > coordination with ‘joint’ readings > coordination with ‘split’ readings  Bare coordination always concerns coordination with ‘split’ readings.  Our challenge will be to derive split readings without giving up the basic intuition of coordination being an instance of set intersection.

37. The semantics of coordination How to go about this? > Enrichment of and > Based on a proposal by Yoad Winter (p.c.) > First enrichment: turn and into a ‘matchmaker’ ) PQ ( ( Q )  ( E x P ) x E

38. The semantics of coordination bride groom ( , ) ( , ) ( , ) ( , ) ( , ) ( , )

39. The semantics of coordination QxE ExP ( , ) ( , ) ( , ) ( , ) ( , )

40. The semantics of coordination How to go about this? > Enrichment of and > Based on a proposal by Yoad Winter (p.c.) > First enrichment: turn and into a ‘matchmaker’ ) PQ ( ( Q )  ( E x P ) x E > Second enrichment: add a function that turns (singular) couples into plural individuals. ) PQ ( ( Q )  ( E x P ) RtoI x E Relations to Individuals RtoI(R) = {xy : R(x,y)}

41. The semantics of coordination bride and groom

42. The semantics of coordination bride and groom > Bride and groom were extremely happy. > extremely_happy( ) > the unique plural individual consisting of a bride and groom was extremely happy

43. Recap Basic data Coordination lifts all semantic constraints on the absence of articles. Basic insight Determiners don’t apply at the coordination level. Implementation Classic blocking ... and its formalization in OT. The semantics of bare coordination Enriched version of an intersective semantics.

44. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and

45. Roadmap • New facts • Previous analyses • Our analysis in a nutshell • Our analysis in OT • The semantics of and • Surprise Bonus shortcut to conclusion

46. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default not coordinated coordinated indefinite definite indefinite definite bare singulars bare plurals not coordinated coordinated indefinite definite indefinite definite bare singulars bare plurals

47. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default Cat and dog were fighting. > Implicature of uniqueness If there had been more cats and dogs, we could have told you so. Given that we did not tell you, you can assume that there was only one cat and one dog. > The effect of this implicature is almost indistinguishable from the contribution of the definite article. Even though our semantic account predicts both a definite and an indefinite reading, pragmatically the indefinite reading is so close to the definite reading that one gets the impression there’s only a definite reading.

48. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default Predictions Given that the implicature depends on the nouns being singular... ... coordinated bare plurals should not have any preference for definite readings. > This is arguably what we find (see Heycock & Zamparelli). Given that we assume the default definite interpretation is an implicature... ... the preference for definite interpretations should be cancelable. > This is what we have demonstrated for existential contexts.

49. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default More predictions Given that the implicature arises because of the competition between bare singulars and plurals... ... the definiteness effect should not only be found for coordinated nouns but also for uncoordinated singular nouns in languages that have a singular/plural distinction but no articles > Languages like Hindi and Russian have indeed been argued to only allow for definite readings for bare singulars, despite their acceptability in existential environments (see Dayal 2004).

50. Why cat and dog is ‘definite’ by default More predictions Given that the implicature arises because of the competition between bare singulars and plurals... ... the definiteness effect should not only be found for coordinated nouns but also for uncoordinated singular nouns in languages that have a singular/plural distinction but no articles > Languages like Hindi and Russian have indeed been argued to only allow for definite readings for bare singulars, despite their acceptability in existential environments (see Dayal 2004, Geist 2010). ... uncoordinated plural nouns in these languages should not show any preference for definite readings > Uncoordinated bare plurals in Hindi and Russian have indeed been argued to allow both definite and indefinite readings (see Dayal 2004).