Predication over aspects of human individuals

Ljudmila Geist

Abstract:

Predicate nouns in German, as well as in other languages, may occur
bare or with an indefinite article. This alternation is possible with role nouns,
which refer to well-established aspects of individuals such as professions and
nationalities. Bare NPs differ from indefinite NPs in that they have restricted
meaning, are number neutral and are restricted in modifiability. In the literature,
these peculiarities received different explanations. The new account combines
previous analyses and is based on the following assumptions: the noun that
projects an indefinite NP denotes a kind, while the noun projecting a bare NP
denotes a capacity. This difference corresponds to the difference in predication:
indefinite NPs predicate about the whole individual assigning it membership in
a certain kind, while bare NPs predicate only about one social aspect of the
individual, identifying it with a certain capacity. Since bare predication concerns
only one aspect of the individual, it is partial. Bare predication can now be
considered under a broader view of partial predication, a phenomenon very
common in argument alternations, and can be analyzed with the tools that have
proved effective in this domain. The approach to bare predication taken here
thus has a larger empirical coverage.
Keywords: bare noun, predicate noun, nonverbal predication, binding, DPstructure