Proceedings of TripleA 7:
Linguistic Theory and Semantic Fieldwork
Edited by Peng Liu, Erin Sjovall, Xue Sun, Polina Berezovskaya and Vera Hohaus
on behalf of Moritz Igel and Konstantin Sachs.
2023 Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen, Publikationssystem

All copyrights remain with the individual authors.
Cover design by Vera Hohaus.
Taro illustrations from Leo D. Whitney, F. A. I. Bowers & M. Takahashi (1939),"Taro Varieties in Hawaii", Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 84, Fig. 2, p. 15.
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Table of Contents
Rajesh Bhatt (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) –Thinking of Rahul

1

Reginald Akuoko Duah
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, University of Ghana, Legon),
Mira Grubic (Universität Potsdam)& Agata Renans (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) –The Combination of Inde nite andDe nite Determiners in Akan

7

John Gluckman (University of Kansas)& Margit Bowler (The University of Manchester) –Epistemic Marking on Nouns in Nyala East

23

Meghan Lim & Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine(National University of Singapore) –De niteness and Inde niteness in Burmese

34

Fabienne Martin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin),
Hongyuan Sun (Université de Picardie Jules-Verne),
Jinhong Liu (Huizhou University)& Hamida Demirdache (Université de Nantes) –On the Zero-Change Construal of
Causative Simple Verbs in Mandarin Chinese

51

34

Definiteness and Indefiniteness in Burmese1
Meghan Lim — National University of Singapore
Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine — National University of SingaporefIntroduction

f

1

f

f

Abstract. We report on the interpretation of different forms of singular argument nominals in
Burmese, a language without articles, from original e ldwork. Like in Mandarin Chinese (Jenks,
2018), bare nouns are unique de nites, with demonstratives used for anaphoric de nites. Inde nites use the numeral ‘one’. We develop an analysis based on Jenks’ analysis of Mandarin Chinese de nites, extended with a novel proposal for ‘one’-inde nites. Inde nites introduce an antiuniqueness inference, which we derive from a Non-Vacuity constraint rather than Maximize Presupposition a ` la Heim (1991), with crucial evidence from anaphoric de nites with ‘one.’ We also
describe the availability of bare noun inde nite objects, which we analyze as a form of (pseudo)noun incorporation.

f

f

f

f

f

In this paper, we report on the expression of (in)definiteness for singular referents in Burmese,a language without articles. The data represented in this paper reflects the Colloquial Burmese
judgments of four native speakers from Yangon who currently reside in Singapore. In the basic
case, singular definite descriptions in Burmese are bare, with no demonstrative or other marker(1), whereas singular indefinites require the numeral ‘one’ with an appropriate classifier (2).2 This
generalisation for (in)definiteness is complicated in object position, as we discuss below.
(1)

Situationally unique definites in subject position:
K’wè=gá Maun Maun=gokaiq-ne-deh.
dog=NOM Maung Maung=ACC bite-PROG-NFUT‘The dog is biting Maung Maung.’(2)

Indefinites in subject position:
K’wè *(tă=kaun)=gá dăgà=go c’iq-ne-deh.
dog
one-CL.animal =NOM door=ACC scratch-PROG-NFUT‘A dog is scratching the door.’1
We thank our speakers Kaung Mon Thu, Nyan Lin Htoo, Phyo Thi Han, and Phyo Thura Htay for patiently
sharing their language with us. For helpful discussion which has informed the work here, we thank Kenyon Branan,James Collins, Hadas Kotek, Keely New, Ryan Walter Smith, and audiences at TripleA 7 and Semantics and Linguistic
Theory (SALT) 30, especially Chris Davis, Vera Hohaus, and Jenneke van der Wal. We thank Wenkay Tay for detailed
comments on an earlier draft. This research is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research
Fund through MOE2017-T2-2-094, which is gratefully acknowledged.
2
The numeral ‘one’ is tiq in citation form but reduces to tă with a classifier. Here we adopt the transcription
system of Okell (1994, 2002); of note, the coda q indicates a glottal stop and ă reflects a schwa. We use the following
abbreviations in glosses: ACC = accusative, ASP = aspect, CL = classifier, CONJ = conjunction, DEM = demonstrative,
FUT = future, NOM = nominative, PL = plural, POSS = possessive, PROG = progressive, PRT = particle, and NFUT =non-future.

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35
In addition, Burmese distinguishes anaphoric and unique definites in the availability of demonstratives: anaphoric definites, which refer to referents that have been mentioned in the prior discourse,
may be introduced by an optional demonstrative èhdi, as in (3):(3)

Anaphoric definites in subject position:
MM=gá k’wè tă-kaun=néhcaun tă-kaun=gohnaúnsheq-ne-deh.
MM=NOM dog one-CL.animal=CONJ cat one-CL.animal=ACC bother-PROG-NFUT(Èhdi) k’wè=gá MM=go laiq-ne-deh.
DEM dog= NOM MM= ACC chase- PROG - NFUT
‘Maung Maung was chasing a dog and a cat. The dog is chasing MM.’

We present these generalizations regarding the expression of definite and indefinite nominals in
detail, supported by judgments of the felicity of specific forms in context. This data is presented
in section 3, following a brief introduction to relevant aspects of Burmese grammar in section 2.
We then provide a compositional semantics for definite and indefinite singular nominals in
Burmese, in section 4. We first present an analysis for Burmese unique and anaphoric definites
based especially on prior work by Schwarz (2009; 2013) and Jenks (2018). We then propose a
new approach to the numeral ‘one,’ which makes Burmese ‘one’-indefinites as in (2) a kind of
choice function indefinite. We also argue there against an alternative approach where ‘one’ itself
functions as an indefinite article, as is cross-linguistically common (Givón, 1981).
Section 5 turns to nominals in object position, where we see that bare nouns may be interpreted
as indefinite as in (4), under certain circumstances. We analyse such bare noun indefinites as
having undergone a process of pseudo-incorporation (see e.g. Massam, 2001; Dayal, 2011; Borikand Gehrke, 2015).
(4)

Indefinites in object position:
Sàn Sàn=gá youn % (tă-kaun)(=go) weh-ne-deh.
San San=NOM rabbit one-CL.animal =ACC buy-PROG-NFUT‘San San is buying a rabbit.’

The behavior of the object in (4) contrasts from nominals in other positions, as in (2), where thenumeral ‘one’ and classifier are necessary for the intended indefinite interpretation.

2

Background

2.1

Word Order and Case Marking

Burmese is a head-final language with default SOV word order and nominative-accusative casealignment. The case markers (nominative ká/gá, accusative ko/go3 ) encliticize to their noun phrases.
Both case markers may be dropped, subject to some restrictions related to the word order of theProceedings of TripleA 7 (2023), 34–50.
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36
clause. Consider the examples of transitive clauses below, with canonical SOV word order in (5)and an OSV order in (6):(5)

Canonical SOV order:Thămădá % (=gá) Maun Maun (=go) p’eiq-k’éh-deh.
President =NOM Maung Maung =ACC invite-ASP-NFUT‘The president invited Maung Maung.’(6)

OSV order via scrambling:
Maun Maun *(=go) Thămădá (=gá)Maung Maung =ACC president =NOM
‘The president invited Maung Maung.’p’eiq-k’éh-deh.
invite-ASP-NFUT

In these and other examples, we observe a general preference for case markers being strongly
preferred between arguments and more optional between an argument and the verb.4 In these examples above, we see that the accusative case marker is optional in the canonical SOV order in(5), but becomes mandatory when the object is scrambled as in (6). Dropping the nominative casemarker is judged as degraded by some speakers in canonical SOV order, but possible in OSV order.
It is cross-linguistically common for the presence or absence of case-marking to reflect differences in the nominal’s interpretation; see for example Aissen (2003) and references there. In
previous work on Burmese, Jenny and Hnin Tun (2013) report that both definiteness and animacy
affect the presence or absence of case markers.5 However, in our investigation we observed nosuch correlations between the presence or absence of case markers with other factors, with theiroptionality being governed only by the positional factors mentioned above. In particular, for all
examples that we report on in this paper, we systematically controlled for the presence or absenceof case markers and found this to not affect the interpretation of the argument in question. In thispaper, we therefore present all examples with case markers throughout. The one exception to thiscomplete independence between case marking choice and interpretation is in the interpretation of
objects, which we discuss in detail in section 5.

2.2

Noun Phrase Structure

A basic schema for the organization of noun phrases in Burmese is given in (7), based on descriptions in Soe (1999, ch. 3) and Simpson (2005).
(7)

Burmese noun phrase schema:(Dem) (RC) N (Adj) (PL) (Num-CL)

Most adjectives occur postnominally, though there are a few that can additionally occur prenominally with slightly modified morphology. For example, colour terms can occur in both positions, as
3

The case markers are underlyingly ká and ko but appear as gá and go here in (5–6) and in many other environments
due to regular word- and phrase-internal intervocalic voicing.
4
Similar observations are reported by Jenny and Hnin Tun (2013, p. 721) and Lazareva (2014).
5
For example: “P arguments with a definite human referent are normally marked by the object marker ko, but thisis not necessarily the case with non-human or indefinite referents” (Jenny and Hnin Tun, 2013, p. 703).

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37
seen in pairs such as k’wè ăneq ‘black dog’ with postnominal ‘black’ and ăneq-yaun k’wè ‘black
colour dog’ with a prenominal modifier. Adjectives can also be the predicate of a relative clause,
which then occurs prenominally.
Turning towards demonstratives, Burmese encodes a three-way contrast for proximity to the
speaker with the demonstratives di, èhdi, and ho. None of the demonstratives are encoded fornumber. The proximal demonstrative di is used strictly in contexts where the referent is withinreach of the speaker and is gestured to in some way, e.g. by pointing or with a head nod in that
direction. The distal demonstrative ho may be used for referents that are not present in the speechsituation. The medial demonstrative èhdi can be used deictically for referents that are out of reach,though speakers typically still require the referent to be visible to the interlocutors. Of interest in
this paper is èhdi and its non-deictic use. Particularly, we see in section 3.2 its ability to be used inanaphoric definites, regardless of visibility to the interlocutors.
Definite and indefinite noun phrases that describe plural referents must use a plural marker suchas dwe in k’wè-dwe ‘dogs.’ Here we concentrate on the use of noun phrases with singular referents,
but we refer the reader to New (2020) for in-depth description and discussion of the semantics ofBurmese plural markers.
Finally, numerals require a classifier when appearing with a nominal. In our investigation, we
have only elicited nominals occurring in isolation in mathematical descriptions as in (8). Otherwise, numerals and classifiers always cooccur as one unit.
(8)3

Tiq=néh thoùn paùn-yin lè yá-deh.
one=CONJ three add-if four get-NFUT‘One plus three is four.’ ´(Literally: ‘If you add 1 and 3, you get 4.’)The Expression of (In)DefinitenessIn this section, we present our core data on the expression of definiteness and indefiniteness in
Burmese. Noun phrases describe particular individuals which may or may not be known or immediately identifiable for the speaker, addressee, or others. Different languages use different strategies
to express such distinctions in the status of noun phrases and their referents. For example, English
only distinguishes between definites and indefinites, using the articles the and a respectively.
(9)Nonspecific indefinite:
A dog is scratching the door, but I don’t know which dog.

(10) Specific indefinite:
A dog is scratching the door, and I know which dog it is.
(11) Unique definites:
a. The president is talking to Maung Maung.
b. The teacher is scolding MM.

(Uttered in Myanmar.)(Uttered in a class with one teacher.)Proceedings of TripleA 7 (2023), 34–50.
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38(12) Anaphoric definite:
San San was looking at a dog and a cat. She is buying the cat.
The two-way morphological distinction in English between (9–10) and (11–12) belies additional,
relevant semantic distinctions which can be drawn. The two indefinite noun phrases a dog in(9–10) may share the property of not having a unique referent for the description which can be
identified by an addressee, but they differ in whether or not the speaker has a particular referent in
mind, i.e. in (epistemic) specificity (see e.g. Farkas, 2002). The definite noun phrase the dog may
be used both where there is a unique referent for the in the relevant situation, as in (11), as well as
for referring back to a particular individual mentioned prior.
As we will see, Burmese is a language that morphologically distinguishes unique versus anaphoric
definites, as many other languages do as well (Schwarz, 2013; Jenks, 2018). As an article-less language, Burmese uses the numeral ‘one’ and medial demonstrative èhdi to express (in)definitenessdistinctions. In brief, we will see that singular indefinites are introduced with the numeral ‘one’,unique definites must be bare (without any demonstrative or numeral), and anaphoric definites may
be bare or take the demonstrative èhdi. This basic pattern is however complicated in object position. As such, in this section, we discuss the general behavior of noun phrase interpretation in
Burmese, with all supporting examples with noun phrases in subject position. We then discuss the
behavior of noun phrases in object position in section 5.

3.1

Indefinites

Singular indefinites in non-object position require the numeral ‘one’ with an appropriate classifier.
There is no distinction between non-specific indefinites (13) and specific indefinites (14).
(13) Nonspecific indefinite:
You work at a doggy daycare. There are multiple dogs outside and Hla Hla and you are in
the back room. You hear a dog scratching on the door, but don’t know which dog it is. You
tell Hla Hla:
K’wè *(tă-kaun)=gá dăgà=go c’iq-ne-deh.
dog
one-CL.animal =NOM door=ACC scratch-PROG-NFUT‘A dog is scratching the door.’(14) Specific indefinite:
You work in a doggy day care. There are multiple dogs in the room with you and you areon the phone with Hla Hla. You see one of the dogs scratching on the door. Hla Hla asks
you what that noise is. You say:K’wè *(tă-kaun)=gá dăgà=go c’iq-ne-deh.
dog
one-CL.animal =NOM door=ACC scratch-PROG-NFUT‘A dog is scratching the door.’
The contexts in both (13) and (14) make clear that there is no unique individual that satisfies thenominal description ‘dog’ in the context. Given this, a unique definite (bare noun) cannot be used.
The examples differ with regards to whether the speaker has a specific referent in mind, but we see
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39that this is inconsequential to the expression of the indefinite in Burmese. What crucially mattersinstead is that the hearer, in this case Hla Hla, lacks knowledge of the individual being referred to.

3.2

Definites

Unique definites must be bare, without a demonstrative or numeral. Without a previous mention in
the discourse, the demonstratives such as the medial èhdi can only be used deictically, i.e. with the
speaker gesturing to the referent.
(15) Immediate situation definite:
You and Maung Maung (MM) are at Hla Hla’s house. She has one dog, who is playing
with MM. Neither of you can see them right now. You tell Hla Hla:(*Èhdi) K’wè (*tă-kaun)=gá MM=go caiq-ne-deh.
DEM dog
one-CL.animal =NOM MM=ACC like-PROG-NFUT‘The dog likes Maung Maung.’
The context in (15) specifies that there is a unique referent that all interlocutors are aware of,though it has not been previously mentioned and cannot be identified by gesture. In such a context,
neither the demonstrative nor the numeral ‘one’ can be used felicitously.
Anaphoric definites, which refer to a prior discourse referent, are commonly expressed withthe medial demonstrative èhdi, without any pointing gesture. This demonstrative is not required,allowing anaphoric definites to be bare, and thus potentially confusable with a unique definite form.
For illustration, consider the example in (16) below. The speaker’s first sentence refers to adog with the ‘one’-indefinite k’wè tă-kaun ‘a dog’ (italicized). The second sentence then refers tothat same dog with the anaphoric definite (èhdi) k’wè (in bold). Note that here, the bare variant
k’wè must be an anaphoric definite and cannot be confused with a unique definite, as there is nosituationally unique dog in the context.
(16) Anaphoric definite:
You go to an adoption drive with MM. There’s an open area for the animals to hang out
and people to mingle about. Up for adoption are a few dogs and cats. When MM causestrouble, you tell an organiser:
MM=gá k’wè tă-kaun=néhcaun tă-kaun=gohnaúnsheq-ne-deh.
MM=NOM dog one-CL.animal=CONJ cat one-CL.animal=ACC bother-PROG-NFUT(Èhdi) k’wè=gá MM=go laiq-ne-deh.
DEM dog= NOM MM= ACC chase- PROG - NFUT
‘MM was bothering a dog3 and a cat. The dog3 is chasing MM.’

3.3

Summary

From our data, we see that Burmese uses the presence or absence of the numeral ‘one’ to distinguish singular definites and indefinites. Additionally, Burmese also distinguishes unique andanaphoric definites through the availability of the medial demonstrative èhdi. The possible interpretations of these nominal forms is summarised in (17).
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40(17) Summary of Burmese singular noun phrase forms:
indefinite
definiteNP
NP one-CL
Dem NP

×◯×

uniqueanaphoric

◯
×
×

◯
×
◯

This pattern holds for all four of our speakers in subject position. While this pattern extends toobject position for one speaker, nominals in object position behave differently for the other three.

4

Analysis

In this section, we develop an analysis for the interpretation of singular noun phrases in Burmese
which accounts for the following features: (a) bare noun phrases are always definite, (b) anaphoric
definites allow for demonstratives, and (c) noun phrases with ‘one’ are indefinite. Here we will
describe Burmese noun phrases as categorically being DPs, although our analysis does not rely on
this syntactic label. A notable property of our proposal is that we treat all DPs without quantifiersin Burmese as definite descriptions, including the indefinites with ‘one’ described above. ‘One’
will then be an intersective modifier that uses a choice function which is existentially bound above,
thus building a choice function indefinite out of a definite description. Evidence for this approach— as opposed to an alternative where the numeral ‘one’ is analyzed as an indefinite article —will be presented below. We begin in section 4.1 with our analysis for the two forms of definite
descriptions in Burmese, followed in section 4.2 with our analysis for indefinites with ‘one.’

4.1

Articulated Definiteness in Burmese

This section looks at the two morphologically distinct definites in Burmese: unique definites witha contextually unique referent and anaphoric definites which refer to a previously mentioned discourse referent. Again, here we will only discuss singular nominals and refer the reader to New(2020) for recent discussion of the semantics of plural expressions in Burmese. As seen in section
3, unique definites must be expressed bare, whereas anaphoric definites may optionally take thedemonstrative èhdi. A similar pattern that morphologically distinguishes anaphoric definites withthe use of demonstratives is found in Mandarin, another article-less language (Jenks, 2018). Taking inspiration from this work, we propose that all nominals without demonstratives or quantifiers
involve the null definite determiner ι, defined in (18).6(18) ι takes a situation argument (s):JιK = λss . λP⟨e,⟨s,t⟩⟩ ∶ ∃! x [P (x)(s)] . ιx [P (x)(s)]ι in (18) takes two arguments: a situation argument s which operationalises the contextual restriction on nominal domains, and the nominal property P. Situations (type s) can be thought of
6

Jenks (2018) proposes that bare NPs in Mandarin undergo an ι-type shift, rather than assuming a null D head.
Further work is necessary to empirically distinguish these approaches.

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41
as subparts of possible worlds; see e.g. Kratzer (2019). The situation argument allows us to restrict the context of evaluation for the nominal property to a salient situation, such as the current
room. The DP headed by ι in (19) can therefore be felicitously used in a scenario where there isa unique dog in a room (the immediate situation s), despite there being other individuals that holdthe property of being a dog in the world extending beyond this situation.
(19) A situationally unique, “bare NP” definite using ι :J[DP [ι s] dog]K = ιx [x dog in s]
Presupposition: There is a unique dog in s
Anaphoric definites are headed by a distinct definite determiner, ιx , which can be realised overtly
as the demonstrative èhdi, or be null.7 In contrast to ι, which takes a situation argument s, ιx in(20) takes an index argument y, represented syntactically by a simple pronoun, which refers to theprior discourse referent. The full DP in (21) then returns the unique individual that satisfies thenominal description in the evaluation world and which is equal to the index individual.
(20) ιx (èhdi) takes an index argument (y):Jιx K = λye . λP⟨e,⟨s,t⟩⟩ ∶ ∃!x [P (x)(w∗ ) ∧ x = y] . ιx [P (x)(w∗ ) ∧ x = y]= λye . λP⟨e,⟨s,t⟩⟩ ∶ P (y)(w∗ ) . y(21) Anaphoric definite with èhdi using ιx :J[DP [ιx (èhdi) pro3 ] dog]K = ιx [x dog in w∗ ∧ x = g(3)] = g(3)Presupposition: g(3) is a dog in w∗
We note that the semantics we propose for ιx in (20) differs from that in Jenks (2018) and the‘strong’ article of Schwarz (2009) in not taking a situation argument. We discuss and motivate thischoice in Erlewine and Lim (2020).

4.2

Indefinites with ‘one’

Indefinites take the numeral ‘one’ with an appropriate classifier. At first glance this may suggestthat the numeral ‘one’ has been grammaticalized into an indefinite article, as is well-attested crosslinguistically (Givón, 1981).8 We argue against such an approach from the fact that the numeral‘one’ may appear in anaphoric definites, where it clearly does not force an indefinite interpretation.
Consider example (22):(22) Anaphoric definites can take ‘one’:You go to an adoption drive with Maung Maung (MM). There’s an open area for the animals to hang out and people to mingle about. One dog and one cat are up for adoption,
among other animals. When MM causes trouble, you tell an organizer:
The proximal and distal demonstratives di and ho may be analyzed as variants of this same ιx entry which introduce proximate or distal requirements on the referent. The demonstrative èhdi, which can be described as a “medial”
demonstrative, is then simply the unmarked form.
8
But see also Becker (2018, sect. 7.2) for discussion of concerns regarding the empirical basis for describing ‘one’
as an indefinite article in many languages. We thank Jenneke van der Wal for bringing this work to our attention.
7

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42
MM=gá k’wè (*tă-kaun)=néh caun=go hnaúnsheq-ne-deh.
MM=NOM dog one-CL.animal =CONJ cat=ACC bother-PROG-NFUT(tă-kaun) =gá MM=go laiq-ne-deh.
one-CL =NOM MM=ACC chase-PROG-NFUT‘Maung Maung was bothering the dog3 and the cat.
The/that (one) dog3 is chasing Maung Maung.’Èhdi k’wè
DEM dog

Note that the extension of ‘dog’ is unique in this context, supporting the use of the bare noun definite k’wè (italicized) in the first sentence, but not an indefinite with ‘one.’ Èhdi k’wè in the second
sentence (bolded) is anaphoric to this dog mentioned in the first sentence. What is of interest hereis the fact that the anaphoric definite in the second sentence can optionally be modified with ‘one,’with no change in meaning. Descriptively, adding ‘one’ to the DP in the first sentence is disallowed
because doing so would form an indefinite, which is infelicitous in the context; however, adding‘one’ to an anaphoric definite does not result in an indefinite meaning. See Erlewine and Lim(2020) for discussion of the source of this anti-uniqueness requirement on the use of indefinites
with ‘one,’ and its apparent lack in the anaphoric definite.
We now turn to the compositional semantics of ‘one’-indefinites. We propose that ‘one’ witha classifier forms a modifier that restricts the nominal domain to a singleton set using a particular
choice function f cf . See (23) for this composite meaning. µCL is a measure function that takes anindividual and returns the number of CL-atoms that it contains. Here we leave open the questionof the precise division of labor between the numeral ‘one’ and the classifier that together make up
the meaning in (23), and instead concentrate on their joint contribution.
(23) J[onef CL]K = λP⟨e,⟨s,t⟩⟩ . λxe . λss . x = f cf (λy . P (y)(s) ∧ µCL (y) = 1)

We propose that an indefinite such as k’wè tă-kaun ‘a dog’ has a structure as in (24). The structure
is a singular definite description headed by the null definite determiner ι, and therefore will refer toa particular individual. However, that choice of individual will depend on the the choice function
f cf . As seen in the expansion of the denotation in (24), the DP denotes whichever individual f cf
returns, given the set of individuals that have the property of being an atomic dog in situation s.
As long as the extension of the property in the relevant situation s is not empty, the uniqueness andexistence requirements of ι will be satisfied, regardless of the choice of f cf .
(24) J[DP [ι s] [dog [onef CL]]]K = ιx [x = f cf (λy . y is an atomic dog in s)]= f cf (λy . y is an atomic dog in s)
Presupposition: There is an atomic dog in s
We propose that the choice function is then existentially bound from above, forming a choicefunction indefinite. ‘A dog is scratching the door’ in (13) and (14) could then be represented asin (25). In complex sentences, the existential binder ∃f cf could be adjoined at different heights,
leading to variable scope-taking by the indefinite, which we show to be possible in section 5.3.
(25) Interpreting ‘A dog is scratching the door’ (13, 14):∃f cf [ [DP [ι s] [dog [onef CL]]] is scratching the door in w∗ ]= ∃f cf [ f (λy . y atomic dog in s) is scratching the door in w∗ ]↝ 1 iff a dog in s is scratching the door in w∗
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43
Our proposal here offers a new approach to the compositional semantics of indefinites in an articleless language where bare NPs are definite: ‘one’ is an intersective modifier that restricts the nominal domain to a singleton set, using a choice function which is existentially bound above. A consequence of this approach as presented here is that, for a nominal property NP that has a uniquereferent in the relevant situation, the bare NP definite and the ‘one’-indefinite “NP one CL” arepredicted to be equivalent. In practice, however, the use of the ‘one’-indefinite is blocked in sucha context. In Erlewine and Lim (2020), we propose that modification by ‘one’ is subject to a NonVacuity constraint, which derives this anti-uniqueness requirement on the use of ‘one’-indefinites.

5

Indefinites in Object Position

The analysis just presented in section 4 — and further elaborated on in Erlewine and Lim (2020) —derives the one-to-one correspondence between nominal form and interpretation presented in 3
above: singular (unique) definites are bare NPs whereas singular indefinites take the numeral ‘one.’
This clear pattern for the expression of (in)definiteness holds for all of our speakers in subject andoblique/prepositional argument positions. However, as mentioned above, the facts in object position are more complicated. In particular, for three of our four speakers, indefinites in object
position can be bare, without the numeral ‘one.’
In this section, we describe this possibility of bare noun indefinites and the various restrictions
that apply to them in the grammars of our speakers. We propose that bare noun indefinites arepseudo-incorporated (see e.g. Massam, 2001; Dayal, 2011; Borik and Gehrke, 2015), and document the variation amongst our speakers in the availability of pseudo-incorporation and conditions
on its application. We also show that bare noun indefinites consistently take narrow scope with respect to other scope-taking operators, unlike ‘one’-indefinites, which is predicted by our account.

5.1

Restrictions on Bare Noun Indefinites

Consider the expression of an indefinite singular object. All four of our speakers allow for the useof an NP with ‘one’ as in (26) below. This reflects the generally available strategy of forming a
choice function indefinite in the language, as described above.
(26) ‘One’-indefinite in object position:
Sàn Sàn=gá youn tă-kaun(=go) weh-ne-deh.
San San=NOM rabbit one-CL.animal =ACC buy-PROG-NFUT‘San San is buying a rabbit.’
For three of our four speakers, indefinites in object position can also be a bare NP without ‘one,’as in example (27) below, but with certain restrictions.
(27) Bare noun indefinite object, possible for three speakers:
Sàn Sàn=gá youn (% =go) weh-ne-deh.
San San=NOM rabbit =ACC buy-PROG-NFUT‘San San is buying a rabbit.’
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In this section, we describe the various restrictions that hold of bare noun indefinites in object
position. We therefore concentrate in this section on the judgments of our three speakers who
allow for bare noun indefinites, and summarise the pattern of judgments for all four of our speakers at the end of this section. We note that all of the data that we report in this section reflect
judgments of examples in contexts that support indefinite or unique definite interpretations of thesingular nominals in question, just as we presented in section 3 above. However, to simplify thepresentation here, we present our data without their supporting contexts and use English translations with the versus a to indicate intended nominal meanings as (unique) definite versus indefinite.
We begin by discussing the availability of accusative case marking. For the bare noun indefinite (27), the accusative marker ko is judged as dispreferred for all three speakers, albeit with somevariation in the strength of this judgment, as we discuss below. Note that the accusative marker
is completely optional for the ‘one’-indefinite in (26) for all our speakers. The bare NP object in(27) can also be interpreted as a definite ‘the rabbit’ for all speakers, with the accusative marker kothen being optional. Due to the marked status of accusative case marking on bare noun indefinites,
we drop the accusative case from all objects in the examples we present in the remainder of thissection.
Our example of a bare noun indefinite in (27) involves a description in the present progressive.
It is worth noting that bare noun indefinites are not limited to clauses with particular tense/aspectspecifications. Below we present examples in the past perfective, in (28), and with future tense, in(29). As with the present progressive example (27), the bare noun indefinite is ambiguous between
being definite and indefinite.
(28) Bare noun indefinite with past perfective:
Maun Maun=gá
p’à sha-twé-laiq-teh.
Maung Maung=NOM frog search-find-ASP-NFUT✓ ‘Maung Maung found a frog.’✓ ‘Maung Maung found the frog.’(29) Bare noun indefinite with future:
Maun Maun=gá
youn weh-meh.
Maung Maung=NOM rabbit buy-FUT✓ ‘Maung Maung is going to buy a rabbit.’✓ ‘Maung Maung is going to buy the rabbit.’
Modification of bare indefinites is also dispreferred, although again the strength of this judgment
varies between our speakers. However, as bare indefinites are not strictly limited to unmodified nouns in the general case, we describe bare noun indefinites as having undergone pseudoincorporation à la Massam (2001) rather than noun incorporation.
(30) Some variation in the acceptability of modifiers:
a. Sàn Sàn=gá caun ăp’yu ywè-ne-deh.
San San=NOM cat white pick-PROG-NFUT% ‘San San is picking a white cat.’✓ ‘San San is picking the white cat.’
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b. Maun Maun=gá
c’ieı̀nji weh-ne-deh.
Maung Maung=NOM cotton shirt buy-PROG-NFUT% ‘Maung Maung is buying a cotton shirt.’✓ ‘Maung Maung is buying the cotton shirt.’
As noted in section 2, nominal arguments in Burmese may be scrambled with generally no change
in the meaning. However, this is not the case with bare noun indefinites. While ‘one’-indefinites
can be scrambled away from the verb, bare noun indefinites cannot. The scrambled bare NP object
caun ‘cat’ in (31b) thus allows only a definite interpretation.
(31) Bare noun indefinite cannot be scrambled:a. Sàn Sàn=gá caun ywè-ne-deh.
San San=NOM cat pick-PROG-NFUT✓ ‘San San is picking a cat.’✓ ‘San San is picking the cat.’b. Caun Sàn Sàn=gá
ywè-ne-deh.
cat San San=NOM
pick-PROG-NFUT* ‘San San is picking a cat.’✓ ‘San San is picking the cat.’
Finally, we note that the availability of bare noun indefinites is limited specifically to object position.9 We have already seen that bare NPs must be definite in subject position for all of ourspeakers, in section 3. The same is true for objects of prepositions and other oblique nominal
positions, as in (32).
(32) Nominals in an adjunct phrase:
Aun=gápànjan=go k’wè *(tă-kaun)=néh thwà-ne-deh.
Aung=NOM park=ACC dog
one-CL.animal =with go-PROG-NFUT‘Aung is going to the park with a dog.’
When in the comitative phrase in (32), k’wè ‘dog’ once again requires the numeral ‘one’ and classifier tă-kaun to get an indefinite expression. This is true regardless of the position of the adjunctphrase in the clause.
We summarise our four speakers’ judgments regarding the availability of indefinite interpretation without ‘one’ in different environments in the table in (33) below. We point to representative
examples for each condition to the right of the table, but the patterns of judgments we report herereflect the judgments of numerous different examples across multiple sessions with each speaker.
9

We have also attempted to determine whether the availability of bare noun indefinites track thematic patienthoodor grammatical objecthood, i.e. by comparing the interpretation of unergative and unaccusative subjects. We havethus far been unsuccessful in eliciting clear and consistent judgments for the interpretation of bare noun patient subjects. Therefore, here, we tentatively report bare noun indefinites as limited to object position, but we leave open
the possibility that the true generalization is that bare noun indefinites are possible for patients, rather than objects
specifically.

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46(33) Availability of indefinite interpretation for bare NP, by speaker:10
AB
CD
subj’s and other non-obj’s

×

×

×

×

see §3, (32)bare N without casewith case marking
with modification
scrambled away from verb

×
×
×
×

◯
×
×
×

◯
(×)
◯
×

◯
??
(◯)
×

(27–29)(27) with ko
(30)
(31)

Speaker A is our one speaker who consistently disallows singular indefinites without ‘one’ in allenvironments. Speakers B, C, and D are our three speakers who allow for bare noun indefinites,
but with different restrictions on their shape and size. We attribute this variation to a particular interpretation strategy being possible for the latter three speakers, but with slightly distinct syntactic
restrictions on its use. We describe the semantics of this operation in the following section.

5.2

Pseudo-Incorporation

We have seen that bare nouns may be indefinite for some of our speakers, with variable restrictions
on their size and shape, but only in object position (or for patients; see footnote 9) and when adjacent to the verb. Nominals that receive indefinite interpretation under such conditions have been
documented in a wide range of languages — see e.g. Massam (2001), Dayal (2011), the works in
Borik and Gehrke (2015), and references therein — and following this literature, we refer to thesenominals as having undergone pseudo-incorporation, also known as Pseudo Noun Incorporation.
See the introduction to Borik and Gehrke (2015) for an overview of cross-linguistically common
properties of pseudo-incorporation.
Here, for concreteness, we sketch one possible analysis for the semantics of pseudo-incorporated
nominals based on Chung and Ladusaw (2004).11 Chung and Ladusaw propose a composition rulecalled Restrict which allows a nominal predicate to compose with a predicate without saturating
the argument. We take pseudo-incorporated nominals (bare noun indefinites) in Burmese to be
NPs, rather than full DPs, and denote predicates of type ⟨e, t⟩. Composing the object NP withthe verb will result in a predicate with a restricted but unsaturated internal argument. Existential
closure then applies, necessarily low, at the predicate (e.g. VP) level. This results in so-called semantic incorporation: a necessarily narrow scope indefinite meaning for the pseudo-incorporated
nominal. In the following section, we show that bare noun indefinites in Burmese indeed takeobligatory narrow scope.
This proposal for the syntax/semantics of bare noun indefinites allows us to understand andmodel the variation as well as uniformities that we observe in our speakers’ grammars. For
10

Judgments in parentheses: Speaker C judged most but not all examples with case marking to be unacceptable
and speaker D judged most but not all examples with modification to be acceptable, with the intended indefinite
interpretation. ?? judgment: Speaker D judged indefinite bare nouns with case marking inconsistently, but reports apreference for case drop when minimal pairs with and without case marking are presented.
11
Alternative approaches include type-shifting the predicate as in Geenhoven (1998) and the Derived Kind Predication of Chierchia (1998).

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one speaker, all nominal arguments must be full DPs, so there are no NP nominals that pseudoincorporation applies to. For our other speakers, NP arguments exist but vary in their possible size:e.g. some marginally allow accusative case marking and some allow adjectival modification. For
all of these speakers, though, bare NPs scrambled away from the verb cannot be interpreted as
indefinite. This mode of composition via Restrict cannot apply if the object moves away from theverb, leaving a trace of type e, explaining the adjacency requirement.
The semantics for pseudo-incorporation sketched above, as well as prominent alternatives (seefootnote 11), capture the fact that pseudo-incorporated nominals are necessarily narrow-scope indefinites. The end result, then, is that we predict bare NPs in Burmese to have two possible
interpretations: definite (with covert definite determiner) or a narrow-scope indefinite (via pseudoincorporation), but never a wide-scope indefinite. This pattern of interpretation for bare nominals isa cross-linguistically well-attested pattern in article-less languages (see e.g. Dayal, 2004, p. 404ff),
although not the only possibility (see e.g. Šimı́k and Demian, 2020). In the next section, we confirm
the predictions of this theory by investigating the scope-taking behavior of bare noun indefinites.

5.3

The Scope of Indefinites

We have seen that Burmese allows for two types of indefinites in object position: indefinites with
‘one,’ which are available in any nominal position and which we have analyzed as choice functionindefinites in section 4.2, and bare noun indefinites, which we proposed to analyze as pseudoincorporated nominals. In this section, we investigate the scope-taking of these two classes ofindefinite objects, reporting only judgments from our three speakers who allow for both types ofindefinites. We will see that bare noun indefinites consistently take strictly narrow scope with respect to other scope-taking operators, whereas ‘one’-indefinites exhibit a great degree of flexibility
in their scope-taking. This contrast is explained by and in turn supports our analysis for these two
distinct types of indefinites in the language.
We describe the scope-taking of the two types of indefinite objects with respect to negation,
the volitional auxiliary c’in ‘want,’ and conditional clauses, beginning with negation. In negative
clauses, we see a clear distinction between the scope-taking behaviour of ‘one’-indefinites, whichmust scope over negation, and bare noun indefinites, which must scope below negation.12(34) In negative clauses:
a. Sàn Sàn=gá youn tă-kaun(=go) mă-weh-géh-bù.
San San=NOM rabbit one-CL.animal =ACC NEG-buy-ASP-NEG* ‘San San didn’t get any rabbits.’✓ ‘There’s a rabbit that San San didn’t get.’b. Sàn Sàn=gá youn (=go) mă-weh-géh-bù.
San San=NOM rabbit =ACC NEG-buy-ASP-NEG✓ ‘San San didn’t get any rabbits.’* ‘There’s a rabbit that San San didn’t get.’
12* NEG > ∃✓ ∃ > NEG

✓ NEG > ∃* ∃ > NEG

Burmese also has NPIs of the form wh-hma (Erlewine and New, 2019), which allows for the expression of NEG > ∃even for speakers without bare noun indefinites.

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Under the volitional auxiliary c’in ‘want,’ ‘one’-indefinites can take wide or narrow scope meanings, with dhăht’è tă-yauq ‘a rich man’ having either a specific referent or referring to any richman. As in negative clauses above, the bare noun indefinite can only take the narrow scope reading.
(35) Under modal verb ‘want’:a. Sàn Sàn dhăht’è tă-yauq
laqt’aq-c’in-deh.
San San rich.man one-CL.person marry-want-NFUT✓ ‘San San wants to marry a/any rich man.’✓ ‘There’s a rich man that San San wants to marry.’b. Sàn Sàn dhăht’è laqt’aq-c’in-deh.
San San rich.man marry-want-NFUT✓ ‘San San wants to marry a/any rich man.’* ‘There’s a rich man that San San wants to marry.’✓ want > ∃✓ ∃ > want

✓ want > ∃* ∃ > want

Similar facts hold when we consider indefinite objects in conditional clauses. The ‘one’-indefinite
can take wide and narrow scope, while the bare noun must take narrow scope within the conditionalclause:(36) In conditional clause:a. Nga=gá ùlè tă-yauq
t’aq-yin, nga c’àn-t’à-meh.
1 SG=NOM uncle one-CL.human kill-if 1SG rich-ASP-FUT✓ ‘If I kill an/any uncle of mine, I will be rich.’✓ ‘There’s an uncle of mine, s.t., if I kill him, I will be rich.’b. Nga=gá ùlè t’aq-yin, nga c’àn-t’à-meh.
1 SG=NOM uncle kill-if 1SG rich-ASP-FUT✓ ‘If I kill an/any uncle of mine, I will be rich.’* ‘There’s an uncle of mine, s.t., if I kill him, I will be rich.’✓ if > ∃✓ ∃ > if

✓ if > ∃* ∃ > if

As we can see, there is clear difference in the scope-taking abilities of ‘one’-indefinites and barenoun indefinites with respect to negation, the volitional auxiliary ‘want,’ and conditional clauses.
We summarise these possibilities for our speakers who accept both types of indefinite objects inthe table in (37):(37) Scope-taking possibilities of the two types of indefinite objects:
bare NP‘one’-indefinite
NEG > ∃

want > ∃if > ∃∃ > NEG∃ > want, want > ∃∃ > if, if > ∃These differences in the scope-taking of ‘one’ versus bare indefinite objects is explained by our
proposal. First, the semantics of pseudo-incorporation as in section 5.2 predicts that bare noun
indefinites will necessarily take narrow scope with respect to all other scope-taking operators,
as is the behavior of pseudo-incorporated nominals cross-linguistically. On the other hand, we
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49
have proposed that ‘one’-indefinites are choice function indefinites whose quantificational scope
will be determined by the height at which the existential choice function binder is merged. The
pattern of scope-taking for ‘one’-indefinites in (37) is explained if this existential binder can only
adjoin to clause boundaries, e.g. TPs. For example, in a conditional construction, the existential
binder could adjoin within the conditional clause or to the top of the full clause, scoping over theconditional. If we analyze ‘want’ as involving an embedded (control) clause, but negative clauses
to be monoclausal, we furthermore explain the scope ambiguity with respect to ‘want’ but scope
rigidity with respect to negation.

6

Conclusion

The study of (in)definiteness in contemporary linguistics has developed largely, at least initially,
based on the study of languages such as English, where morphological oppositions between articles such as the versus a demarcate categories of study. In languages without articles, there is anatural question of how corresponding semantic oppositions are expressed, if at all, and existing
work has found that not all article-less behave the same in this regard (see e.g. Dayal, 2004; Šimı́kand Demian, 2020).
In this paper, we contribute to this growing literature on the typology of nominal interpretationin article-less languages, through our original elicitation work on Burmese. We have shown firstthat Burmese distinguishes unique and anaphoric definites (see also Schwarz 2009, 2013) throughthe availability of demonstratives for the latter but not the former, reminiscent of the pattern attested in Mandarin Chinese (Jenks, 2018). Singular indefinites generally must be marked with thenumeral ‘one’ with an appropriate classifier. We argue against analyzing this use of the numeral‘one’ as an indefinite article, through its availability in anaphoric definites, and instead develop anovel analysis for ‘one’ as an intersective modifier which builds definite descriptions that function
as choice function indefinites; see Erlewine and Lim (2020) for further details on this aspect ofour proposal. Finally, we also showed that Burmese allows for bare noun objects with indefinite
interetation via a pseudo-incorporation strategy that is available for some speakers, under certain
circumstances, subject to substantial speaker variation.
We note furthermore that Burmese has morphological number marking, but here we limited
our investigation to nominals with singular referents. We refer the reader to New (2020) for indepth description and analysis of plural constructions in Burmese. The consideration of how thestrategies for expressing (in)definiteness, investigated here, interact with plural marking is left open
for future work.

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