An investigation about bare nominal phrases and the mass-count distinction in Brazilian Portuguese
Keywords:
Comparison, Bare nouns, Bare singular, Experimental semanticsAbstract
This paper investigates the so-called bare nominal phrases (NPs) in Brazilian Portuguese (BrP), in relation with their mass/count properties in comparison structures. We performed an experiment using the method of quantity judgments, which allowed us to test the comparison scale used by the speaker. The results led us to challenge the generalizations by Bale and Barner (2009). We concluded that Pires de Oliveira and Rothstein’s (2011) proposal is a better explanation for the case of bare singulars. Also, we posited an explanation for the case of fl exible nouns in BrP.
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References
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