The Syntax-Semantics of Bare Nouns in Brazilian Portuguese
Authors: Pires de Oliveira Roberta 
Published: February 2025

Article languages vary with respect to the grammaticality of bare nouns, that is, phrases that are not overtly headed by articles and occupy argumental positions. English only accepts bare plurals, [[DP
dinosaurs] are extinct]. Romance languages, like French and Italian, do not accept them; articles are obligatory. Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is exotic because it has articles, bare plurals, dinossauros estão extintos (‘dinosaurs are extinct’), and, even more unexpectedly, bare singulars, dinosauro está extinto (‘dinosaur is extinct’). This is allegedly not possible. However, not only does BP have both, but they do not mean quite the same. Finally, there are other number-marking languages, that is, languages that distinguish count and mass with numerals and plural inflection, where bare singulars cohabit with bare plurals, for instance Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê).

Here is the story about English, where only bare plurals are grammatical. Semantically, in English, bare plurals fulfill the valency of kind predicates and behave as proper names. So they denote the kind. The singular form, *dinosaur, is blocked due to a requirement of plurality. Kinds are generic terms; they are about pluralities. One cannot make a kind out of a particular object. The ungrammaticality of the singular form is evidence that it is an atomic predicate. This is a fair description for English, but it blocks languages with bare singulars, such as BP, where bare singulars -coexist with bare plurals. Although both are kind denoting expressions, bare plurals are sums of individuals; bare singulars name the conceptual region of unorganized individuals that have the property at issue.

In BP, the difference is particularly salient in comparison contexts, such as tem mais N que (‘has more N than’), and quantity judgment questions, as in quem tem mais N (‘who has more N’). Bare singulars allow non-cardinal interpretations. The question about who has more can be answered by volume or weight, besides cardinality. The bare plural is cardinal. This is evidence that the plural is structured as sums of atoms. One needs singularities to count. Its semantics imposes counting. The bare singular, by comparison, has no information about sums. It is compatible with different ways of organizing the individuals; they can be measured by different scales. This calls for a distinction between kinds as pluralities, bare plurals, and kinds as singularity, bare singulars. They play different roles in grammar. The distinction is needed in English anyway to account for the definite generic, as in [[DP
the [NP
dinosaur]] is extinct]].

Bare singulars are number-neutral because they are singular kinds. Kinds are realized by individuals that may be combined according to different measures. There is no information that one should count, for instance. Bare plurals are ordered by sums; they carry atomicity, so they must be counted. The proposal predicts neutral quantifiers, such as muito (much/many) in BP. Moreover, it predicts that this difference between kinds as singularities and as pluralities shows in other languages. Rikbaktsa seems to support this conclusion.