The third meeting on “bare nouns” will take place at Bergische Universität Wuppertal on the 4th-6th of March, 2023.
Venue: Senatssal (K.11.07), Campus Grifflenberg, see also Open Street Map or Google Maps
Meeting ID: 649 146 2936
Password: 056567
Invited experts:
Veneeta Dayal (Yale University)
Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University)
Programme Outline
Day 1, Saturday 04.03.23
9:00 – Welcome (Mira Grubic, Reggie Duah, Agata Renans) [15 minutes]
9:15 – Invited talk: “Definites, Demonstratives, Bare Nominals: What competes with What” — Veneeta Dayal (Yale University)
10:15 – Coffee Break [30 minutes]
10:45 – Network Member Talk: “A full DP analysis of the bare noun in Akan” — Mareike Phillips (University of Potsdam)
11:30 – Network Member Talk: “Bare nouns in teleological situations: What licenses Article Drop in German” — Giuliano Armenante (University of Potsdam)
12:15 – Lunch Break [90 minutes]
13:45 – Network Member Talk: “Definite bare nouns in Ngamo (West Chadic)” — Mira Grubic (University of Potsdam)
14:30 – Network Member Talk: “Genericity and the too-many-structures puzzle: A crosslinguistic study on English, German, Italian, and Greek” — Imke Driemel (Humboldt University, Berlin)
15:15 – Coffee Break [30 minutes]
15:45 – Network Member Talk: “The role of gesture and joint attention in the distribution of two types of demonstratives in ʔayʔaǰuθəm” — Marianne Huijsmans (University of Alberta) & Daniel Reisinger (University of British Columbia)
16:30 – Business meeting [45 minutes]
17:15 – End
Day 2, Sunday 05.03.23
9:00 – Arrival
9:15 – Invited talk: “Argument Formation: Crosslinguistic considerations (from a mostly Romance perspective)” — Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University)
10:15 – Coffee Break [30 minutes]
10:45 – Network Member Talk: “Modeling definiteness in language contact situations” — Sampson Korsah (University of Cape Coast) & Augustina Owusu (Boston College)
11:30 – Network Member Talk: “Empirical perspectives on the semantics of bare NPs in Slavic languages: Against covert iota” — Radek Simik (Charles University, Prague)
12:15 – Lunch Break [90 minutes]
13:45 –Network Member Talk: “Bare nouns in prepositional phrases: a language change perspective” — Alexandra Simonenko (Ghent University)
14:30 – Network Member Talk: “Relative clauses without relative pronouns: on the role of indices in relative clause formation” — Emily Hanink (Indiana University)
15:15 – Coffee Break [30 minutes]
15:45 – Work meeting on the experiment [90 minutes]
17:15 – End
Conference Dinner at Alaturka Restaurant
Day 3, Monday 06.03.23
9:00 – Introduction to Roundtable Discussions — Mira Grubic, Agata Renans, Reggie Duah
9:15 – Roundtable 1: What is the syntax of bare nouns definites: are they DPs or NPs?
Chair: Reggie Duah (University of Ghana/Humboldt University)
An overarching question regarding the syntax of bare nouns (especially in languages without overt (in)definite articles) is whether they project a DP or NP. Two opposing proposals were made in the literature: (i) a universal DP view arguing that bare NPs are headed by a covert D and thus project a DP (Longobardi 1994, Progovac 1998, Pereltsvaig 2007, a.o.), (ii) an opposite view putting forward that bare NPs do not project a DP (e.g., Corver 1992, Bošković 2005). This raises the question which analysis comes closer to empirical scrutiny.
Discussants: Sampson Korsah (University of Cape Coast), Imke Driemel (Humboldt University, Berlin)
10:30 – Coffee Break [30 minutes]
11:00 – Roundtable 2: Is the blocking principle universal?
Chair: Mira Grubic (University of Potsdam)
Languages with two kinds of definites where “uniqueness” definites are expressed by a bare noun appear to contradict the blocking principle: how can these cases be explained? Are the overt determiners in fact demonstrative determiners which do not block ι? Is there a covert uniqueness article with the meaning in (3b) in these cases? Or are there in fact two kinds of ι typeshifts, corresponding to the two kinds of definite determiners (see Moroney 2021), with the option of blocking them separately? Why is it the uniqueness reading that is conveyed using bare nouns, not the familiarity reading?
Discussants: Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University), Mareike Phillips (University of Potsdam), Augustina Owusu (Boston College)
12:15 – Lunch [90 min]
13:45 – Roundtable 3: Is the ranking of type shifting operators (∩ > {ι, Ǝ}) universal?
Chair: Agata Renans (Ruhr-University, Bochum)
Chierchia predicts that bare singular nouns truly get both an existential (wide and narrow scope) reading and a definite interpretation. However, there were proposals that the different available readings better analyzed as only definite (ι > Ǝ) (Dayal 2004) or only existential (Ǝ > ι) (Heim 2011). Is there a true definite interpretation of bare nouns arising via an ι typeshift? If no, how are the seemingly definite readings obtained? If yes, what range of uses and meanings does the ι typeshift have, can it e.g., also be used for seemingly indefinite examples (Dayal 2004)? What is the role of uniqueness? Is there cross-linguistic variation with respect to the availability of the definite
interpretation?
Discussants: Veneeta Dayal (Yale University), Radek Simik (Charles University, Prague)
15:00 – End