Syntax And Semantics Of Bare Nominals And (Bare) Binomials

The syntax and semantics of bare noun phrases have been widely studied bylinguists in recent years. Binomials and bare binomials have also attracted somelinguists attention. This thesis mainly tries to give a systematic study of bare nominals,binomials and bare binomials from syntactic and semantic points of view.This thesis has mainly proposed and solved the following three questions:(1) What are the similarities and differences of bare nominals, binomials and barebinomials when they appear as arguments in sentences both in mandarin Chinese andEnglish? What syntactic constraints are responsible for this?(2) What are the semantic properties of bare nominals, binomials and barebinomials? Is there a unified analysis of the referential properties of bare nominalsboth in English and Mandarin Chinese?(3)Within what syntactic category should we study bare binomials? Whatdetermines the word order in irreversible bare binomials?As for the first question, by comparing examples of bare nominal, binomial andbare binomial arguments of English and Chinese, we have generalized their differencesand similarities. We are in support of the DP Hypothesis and Longobardi s view thatonly DPs can be arguments. The determiner should be regarded as the head of thewhole phrase rather that the noun. The noun becomes the complement of the D head.English bare plurals are not bare syntactically. They are actually imbedded in acomplete Determiner Phrase in which the head D is empty. So they can be arguments.Binomials can also be arguments because their syntactic structure involves either theconjunction of two DPs or the merge of D and NP conjunction. Bare binomials showinherent plurality and can be patterned with bare plurals. And Chinese NPs can also bearguments because they are argumental. And this makes it possible for them to appearbare in argument positions.In terms of the semantic properties of bare nominals, we are in support ofChierchia s Kind-denoting Approach and hold that both English and Mandarin Chinesebare nominals are kind-denoting terms. They can get a unified analysis by usingtype-shifting operators. For the semantic readings of binomials, we find that theycorrespond to the number marking of the predicates. And through examples andcomparison, this thesis has arrived at the conclusion: singular binomials can get bothsplit and joint reading; plural binomials can only get split reading. Base on the semantic study of bare binomials, we find that they are non-compositional and the totalmeaning of bare binomials is much more than the meaning sum of their two parts;singular bare binomials can have definite, indefinite and generic meanings while pluralbare binomials can have definite and indefinite meanings.Then the answer we give to the third question is: bare binomials are complexwords like compounds; phonological and semantic factors work together to determinethe word order of irreversible bare binomials.This thesis has studied the properties of bare nominals, binomials and barebinomials both syntactically and semantically, which will have an influence on thefurther studies of their relationships.