תקציר:

Gennaro Chierchia's (1998) neo-Carlsonian account of reference to kinds via nominalization type-shift from properties to kinds, which applies to mass & plural properties exclusively, is upheld despite evidence of bare singular reference to kinds in Hebrew & Brazilian Portuguese, both of which have definite articles & plural inflection of nouns. Languages that admit bare singular nouns in addition to nouns with definite determiners are shown to use incorporation to obtain existential interpretations of bare nouns; reference to kinds requires a noun to be either plural or the subject of a categorical judgment, in which case it is interpreted as definite. Whereas definiteness requires morphological marking in Hungarian & Arabic, which allow bare singulars as indefinites, morphological definiteness marking is not required for subjects of categorical judgments in Hebrew & Brazilian Portuguese; bare singulars referring to kinds are also held to have definite interpretations in Hindi & Russian, which lack morphological definiteness marking. References. J. Hitchcock