Number-neutral indefinite objects in Brazilian Portuguese as a case of semantic incorporation

Abstract

This paper provides empirical evidence for a verb-noun construction in Brazilian Portuguese, which has not yet been analyzed in the linguistic literature. It is argued that certain indefinite direct objects, typically when adjacent to a particular group of verbs, are interpreted as incorporated structures, receiving non-quantified atelic activity readings. It is shown that despite being rather infrequent, speakers have quite robust intuitions about their structure and interpretation, treating them on a par with bare objects, for which semantic incorporation analyses have been proposed. Evidence is presented from an Acceptability Judgment Task, a Truth Value Judgment Task, and native speakers' metalinguistic comments. Following the incorporation approach of Carlson (2003), these number-neutral indefinites are compared to bare and weak definite direct objects and it is argued that they provide a new type of evidence for the analysis of weak indefinites proposed by Carlson (2003) and subsequent work, which is not found in other article languages. The paper also discusses the pragmatic effects of the construction in the context of related phenomena in Brazilian Portuguese and English.