Genericity and bare nouns in Rikbaktsa: (Macro-jê): kinds and sums
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2024.v20n3a65387Abstract
The article is an exploratory investigation into the semantics of noun phrases in generic sentences in the Rikbaktsa language (Macro-Jê). as part of the project “(In)definiteness from the perspective of underrepresented languages”. Rikbaktsa is a number marking language, that has no articles and the canonical order is Subject-Object-Verb, in which the verb is an autonomous unit. The data analyzed is original and was collected through different methodologies. In addition to documenting an endangered language, the article proposes a morpho-semantic description of generic sentences that, in this language, are morphologically stative. The active structure is episodic. The bare phrases, singular and plural, are not always interchangeable. To explain the distribution and interpretation of these phrases, we propose that the bare singular denotes a singular individual, which can be of different types – generic (kinds) or ordinary individuals –, whereas the plural is always a sum. The article contributes an innovative perspective to the phenomenon that the literature calls “number neutrality”, which, the paper shows, better explains the data in Rikbaktsa.
Keywords: Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê). Generic. Number neutrality. Kinds. Data collection.
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