Bare singulars and singularity in Turkish

Abstract This paper explores the semantics of bare singulars in Turkish, which are unmarked for number form, as English, but can behave like both singular and plural terms, unlike English. While they terms case-marked arguments, interpreted neutrally non-case-marked argument positions, existential copular construction, predicate position. Previous accounts (Bliss, Calgary Papers Linguistics 25:1–65, 2004; Bale et al. Semantics Linguistic Theory (SALT) 20:1–15, 2010; Görgülü, in: nouns specification Ph.d. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 2012) propose that Turkish denote neutral sets morphologically marked pluralities only. approach leads to a symmetric correlation morphological semantic (un)markedness. However, this paper, I defend strict view show actually patterns with English where is exhibited asymmetrically. claim atomic properties plurals have standardly assumed argue apparent neutrality three cases arises via kind reference, extend phenomenon called pseudo-incorporation construction call . occurs positions following Öztürk (Case, referentiality, phrase structure, Amsterdam, Benjamins, Publishing Company, 2005) whereas realized The different behaviors stem from fact reference used more extensively than Furthermore, while there well-known asymmetries between cross-linguistically, manifests restricted distribution evidence. explain blocking effect, specific by on terms.