Bare nouns with different edges

The central observation in this paper is that bare nouns display an ambiguous interpretation only under coordination. Adopting a strict syntax-semantic mapping, this paper focuses on this property and argues that the ambiguity follows from the level of complexity of the left periphery: plural and mass bare nouns have different readings according to whether their edge is low (i.e., PropP) or high (i.e., QP).

Published online: 23 June 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.156.05ihs