Non-specificity in disguise: morphology – semantics mismatches in Old Portuguese nominal items

Abstract

The present inquiry has been spurred by the observation of the morphological behaviour of nominal items in medieval Portuguese codices (the 13th and 14th centuries). Individuals subject to legal regulations, besides being denoted by various configurations of common nouns, are identified also by first-person pronouns. Both kinds of nominal items occur nearly exclusively in singular in defiance of the fact that norms are designed to apply to an unrestricted number of potential addressees. A series of parameters converge to explain this form-function mismatch: type of inflection (inherent vs. contextual), text genre characteristics and syntactic environment (conditional protases). The pervasiveness of the singular in each type of these nominal items is traced back to non-specificity. Out of two competing patterns accounting for instances of (non-) variation in nominal morphology, Definiteness Hierarchy is given preference over degrees of animacy: non-specifically used items, even if highly ranked on animacy scale (e.g. personal pronouns), are the least likely to surface as plural forms. Therefore, a slight modification to the inventory of elements listed in the Definiteness Hierarchy is proposed.