Japanese Bare Nouns as Weak Indefinites
نویسنده
چکیده
Japanese Bare Nouns (JBNs) appear to behave like indefinites in some contexts, and mass nouns in some other contexts. For example, when accomplishment verbs have JBNs as their theme, they are modified by both in-adverbs and for-adverbs. This paper first claims that JBNs are weak indefinites and introduce a variable to be bound by Existential Closure. Second, it shows how telic predicates are derived when accomplishment verbs take JBNs as their theme. Third, we observe that verbs of creation do not appear with for-adverbs when coupled with JBNs, and that an event is considered repeated when accomplishments appear with for-adverbs. Two possible explanations for the facts follow; (i) JBNs are not inherently kinds; (ii) sum-formation is restricted in Japanese.
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