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In this paper we examine the nominal system in Brazilian Portuguese (BrP), a challenge to cross-linguistic studies which rely on the generalization that a language that has indefinites should not have bare nouns. BrP has bare singulars, bare plurals, singular and plural indefinites. We examine the behavior of these phrases, mostly in object position of episodic predicates, and propose that each has a different semantics. The nominal system of BrP can be successfully explained, we argue, within the bi-directional Optimality Theory (biOT) theoretical framework developed by Hendriks et al. (2010). This approach allows us to describe and explain patterns of competition, and accounts for language variation by constraint reranking. For BrP, we propose the synchronic coexistence of two grammars: bare plurals appear in the formal variety of BrP that maintains plural agreement, and bare singulars appear in informal spoken BrP, along with plural definites and indefinites that lack plural agreement on the noun. Under this analysis, BPs denote inclusive plurals, while BSs get a non-atomic semantics that covers both mass and plural interpretations. * We would like to thank the two JPL reviewers, whose comments were really important for us to give the paper its final form. The first author is grateful to CNPq for the research grant (Process Nr. 313011/2013). The second author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO (grant #360-70-340) for the project ‘Weak referentiality: bare nominals at the lexicon-syntax-semantics interface’. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics, 13-2 (2014) / 14-1 (2015), 63-93 ISSN 1645-4537 64 Roberta Pires de Oliveira & Henriëtte de Swart 1. Noun phrases in Brazilian Portuguese The nominal system in contemporary Brazilian Portuguese (BrP) is a challenge, because it seems to run against the generalization that languages have either indefinite noun phrases or bare nouns. The verbal phrases from (1) to (3) show the possible fulfillments of the object position of an episodic predicate, comprou (‘bought’). Besides definite singulars and plurals in (1), BrP uses singular and plural indefinite phrases in this environment (2), as well as bare noun phrases (3): (1) a. compr-ou o livro buy-PERF.PS ART.DEF book ‘bought the book.’ b. compr-ou o-s livro-(s). buy-PERF.PS ART.DEF-PL book-(PL) ‘bought the books.’ (2) a. compr-ou um livro. buy-PERF.PS ART.IND book ‘bought a book.’ b. compr-ou un-s livro(s). buy-PERF.PS ART.IND-PL book-( PL) ‘bought some books.’ (3) a. compr-ou livro. buy-PERF.PS book b. compr-ou livro-s. buy-PERF.PS book-PL ‘bought books.’ The coexistence of a bare singular (BS) in (3a) and a bare plural (BP) (3b) with full indefinite singulars (2a) and plurals (2b) in the grammar of BrP led Schmitt & Munn (1999) to challenge the nominal parameter proposed by Chierchia (1998). Cross-linguistically, bare nominals and full DPs with articles are in complementary distribution. Languages that lack definite and indefinite articles (such as Mandarin Chinese) productively use bare nominals with definite and indefinite interpretations. English has definite articles, and an indefinite singular article, which leaves it with productive bare plurals and bare mass nouns, but they are confined to an indefinite 1 We will not translate the Bare Singular sentences in order to avoid misinterpretations in English. Brazilian Portuguese noun phrases 65 interpretation. Bare singulars occur only in very restricted contexts. We observe further restrictions in Romance languages: Spanish and Italian limit bare plurals to post-verbal (‘governed’) positions (Longobardi 1994), and French does not allow bare nominals at all in regular argument positions. Rather surprisingly, BrP does not pattern with the other Romance languages, because all possibilities are productive: bare singulars, bare plurals and singular/plural definites and indefinites appear in subject and object position. There are various ways to deal with the data in (3) in current linguistic theory, and it is not our aim to review these different theories. However, it is important to show that the data in (1)-(3) cannot be explained as the result of a null D(eterminer). Cyrino and Espinal (2015) claim that BrP is no different from other Romance languages. It behaves just like French, with the only difference that BrP has a productive null D, whereas French does not. The null D analysis is grounded in Longobardi’s (1994) assumption that a DP structure is needed for argumenthood, so articles appear on nominals that appear in regular argument position, where they refer to an entity that saturates the predicate. Given that the bare nominals in (3) do so, Cyrino & Espinal (2015) take them to project a DP. Longobardi requires the null D to be licensed by a governed argument positions (postverbal subjects and objects). This restriction is lifted by Cyrino & Espinal to accommodate bare nominals in subject/preverbal position as exemplified in (4) (Munn & Schmitt 2005): (4) Criança lê revistinha. child read.PRES.3SG comic-book ‘Children read comic books.’ The wider distribution of null Ds in BrP makes it difficult to reconcile Cyrino & Espinal’s proposal with Chierchia’s (1998) blocking principle, which only allows covert type-shifting for meanings not expressed overtly by determiners. Given the overtly available definite and indefinite articles in (1) and (2), a null D with the same meaning should be blocked. This is exactly why Schmitt & Munn (1999, 2005) point to BrP as a language that does not easily fit Chierchia’s (1998) typology. We conclude that the null D analysis advanced by Cyrino & Espinal (2015) restores the normalcy of BrP within the family of Romance languages, but does not explain the distribution of labor between the alleged null Ds in (3) and their overt counterparts in (1) and (2). We make the contrasts in (1)-(3) the focus of our paper. We do not assume a null D, but take the bare nominals in (3) to project an NP or a NumP, and shift to a type e denotation by means of a covert typeshift, as proposed by Chierchia (1998), and implemented for BrP by Pires de Oliveira & Rothstein (2011). The covert type-shift must be motivated by lack of an overt determiner with the same meaning. The competition-based approach of bidirectional Optimality Theory (biOT) lends itself well to an 66 Roberta Pires de Oliveira & Henriëtte de Swart exploration of the covert type-shifts that are available for the bare nominals, as compared to the overt type-shifts encoded in the article system and plural morphology, because it offers a formal account of blocking. So this paper exploits the biOT system developed in Hendriks et al. (2010) to explain the contemporary Brazilian Portuguese nominal system exemplified in (1)-(3). A number of theoretical issues are raised by the claim that the noun phrases in (3) are in regular argument position, and qualify as type e denoting expressions, i.e. denoting individuals (and not predicates). However, it is not our aim to deal with all of them in this paper. In particular, generic sentences like (4) raise issues that are beyond its scope (but see the conclusion for some discussion). This paper focuses on what makes the bare phrases in the object position of an episodic predicate in (3) different from the full DP nominals in (1) and (2), and on how it is possible to find this full range of form-meaning combinations in contemporary BrP. We shall argue that (3a) and (3b) belong to different varieties of BrP, each with their own grammar. Thus, the BS and the BP are not in direct competition. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 relies on de Swart & Zwarts (2010) to develop the basic OT model that derives the forms and meanings in (1) and (2). Section 3 dives deeper into the issue of plurality in biOT, following Farkas & de Swart (2010) in order to clarify the semantics of the BS and the BP. Section 4 brings the different insights together in a biOT analysis that captures the form-meaning combinations in (1)-(3), by arguing that they belong to different grammars. Section 5 works out the implications of the biOT grammar for the semantics of bare plurals and bare singulars in BrP. Section 6 concludes. 2. First steps towards an optimality theoretic grammar of BrP nominals 2.1 The semantics of nominals in bidirectional OT Optimality Theory, as originally proposed by Prince and Smolensky (1997), is a theory that defines well-formedness in terms of optimization over a set of output candidates for a particular input. The bidirectional version of OT in Hendriks et al. (2010) explains the syntax-semantics interface by combining the two directions of generation and interpretation involved in conversation. Both are guided by an optimization process: the speaker chooses the optimal form for what she intends to communicate, and the hearer attributes the optimal interpretation to a given form. These choices are driven by rules that are universally available. However, these rules are violable, and may be overruled. Cross-linguistic variation at the syntax-semantics interface is then explained by the different rankings of these universal rules, fixing the optimal form-meaning pair for each language. The universal rules are built from two opposing forces: economy and expressivity. The principle of economy dictates that in all languages the nominal system should be bare, as in Brazilian Portuguese noun phrases 67 Karitiana (Müller & Bertucci 2012) and Mandarin Chinese (de Swart & Zwarts 2010): roughly, one form is enough to express many meanings, because it is the most economical way for speakers to express themselves. This principle is captured by the markedness constraint *FUNCTN, which punishes all functional structure that adorns the N: *FUNCTN: Avoid functional structure in the nominal domain. The other force driving languages is the expression of meaning, which pushes in the opposite direction from economy