Unlike most Romance languages described in the literature, Brazilian Portuguese is characterized by allowing not only bare plural count nouns (henceforth bare plurals), but also bare singular count nouns (henceforth bare singulars), in argument position (subject and object positions), as originally observed by Schmitt (1996: 234):

Since Schmitt (1996), much work has been done on the syntactic and semantic features associated with such nouns in Brazilian Portuguese. One of the most influential papers on the topic (Schmitt & Munn 1999) emerged after the publication of Chierchia’s nominal parameter (1998b). In his typology, Chierchia (1998b: 354–357) predicted the existence of three types of languages:1

Chierchia (1998b)’s typology does not predict the existence of a language with a singular/plural distinction that also allows bare singulars. As such, Brazilian Portuguese challenged Chierchia’s typology precisely because of the availability of bare singulars in subject and object argument positions.

Since Chierchia’s nominal typology, much of the literature on Brazilian Portuguese explored the syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation of bare singulars (Beviláqua & Pires de Oliveira 2014, 2019; Ferreira 2010; Lima & Gomes 2016; Lima & Oliveira in press; Menuzzi, Silva & Doetjes 2015; Müller 2002; Müller & Oliveira 2004; Munn & Schmitt 2005; Paraguassu-Martins & Müller 2007; Pires de Oliveira & Rothstein 2011a, 2011b; Pires de Oliveira & de Swart 2015; Schmitt & Kester 2005; Schmitt & Munn 1999, 2002, among many others). The vast majority of the examples discussed in this literature focused on one particular lexical class of nouns: nouns that denote concrete individuals. More specifically, the literature has focused on the contrast between objects and substances and how this contrast is manifested in the grammar.2 Nouns that denote non-concrete individuals (henceforth abstract nouns) are only marginally mentioned in most of the literature on the mass/count distinction. For example, as pointed out by Grimm (2014: 182), “while Chierchia (1998a: 69) claims that his system would extend to abstract nouns,” only one paragraph is devoted to the discussion of such nouns in Chierchia’s nominal mapping parameter. This is true not only for Chierchia (1998a, 1998b), but also for most contemporary formal and experimental approaches on the mass/count distinction. More recently, the interpretation and distribution of abstract nouns such as happiness and dancing started to gain more attention in the literature (see, Barner, Wagner & Snedeker 2008; Grimm 2012, 2014, 2016). Previous to our work, Resende (2016) presents a non-experimental discussion about the relationship between lexical aspect and countability for deverbal nouns in Brazilian Portuguese focusing on the contribution of the feature of telicity/atelicity to the count/mass interpretation of such nouns.

Against this background, in this article we intend to explore the interpretation of one class of abstract-denoting nouns in Brazilian Portuguese: nouns that denote events and that are derived from verbs, such as corrida ‘run’ and salto ‘jump’. Our goal is to discuss whether features of the events that these nouns denote – that is, whether they are associated with a durative or punctual event – impact the interpretation of such nouns when they are used as bare singulars (corrida ‘run’).

More specifically, we want to explore experimentally the following question: does the presence (bare plural) or absence (bare singular) of number morphology impact the interpretation of a deverbal noun? How does number morphology interact with the type of event such nouns denote?

In order to address these questions, we first present an overview on the literature on concrete object-denoting bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese (Section 1.1). Then, we present a quantity judgment task (based on the methods used by Barner, Wagner & Snedeker 2008) to explore the interpretation of deverbal nouns in Brazilian Portuguese (Sections 2–4). We conclude this article by arguing that this study’s results further support models of bare singular nouns that allow both count and mass interpretations (e.g., Pires de Oliveira & Rothstein 2011b). We show that the interpretation of bare singulars is impacted by lexical features of the noun root (in this specific case, the durative or punctual features that characterize the events the deverbal nouns denote).

Aspectual information is brought to sentences across languages either through grammatical elements or through the inherent meaning of predicates (Comrie 1976; Smith 1997, among others). In this article, we are especially interested in the latter, which is called “situation type” (Smith 1997) or “lexical aspect” (Rothstein 2004). Smith (1997), based on Vendler (1967), who proposed four verb types, states, activities, accomplishments, and achievements, analyzed such verb types according to their temporal features – static vs. dynamic, telic vs. atelic, and durative vs. instantaneous – and proposed a fifth verb type – semelfactive – as summarized in Table 2.

Our main study contrasted nouns that denote durative and punctual events in Brazilian Portuguese. While durative events take place over a certain amount of time, punctual events take place in a moment (Comrie, 1976; Smith 1997). In other words, and as highlighted by Barner, Wagner, and Snedeker (2008), punctual events are characterized by atomic events that have clear start and end points. As such, the repetition of a punctual event (such as jump) implies several bounded events of the same type. On the other hand, durative events (such as walk) are unbounded and are characterized as events that can take place over an extended period of time, continuously.

The classification of verbs as durative or punctual – or as activities, achievements, semelfactives, etc. – is not unanimous in the aspectual literature. Thus, while taking into consideration examples of prototypical verbs presented as activities by Vendler (1967) and Dowty (1979) or as semelfactives by Smith (1997) and Katalin (2011), in order to select the verbs for the main study, we did an initial stimuli norming study (based on Barner, Wagner & Snedeker 2008, Study 1) where the participants had to evaluate different verbs as iterative events or continuous events, which implied the repetition of punctual events or the lasting in time of durational ones, respectively. A total of 27 verbs were evaluated by the participants (66 Brazilian Portuguese speakers) in this task. For our main study (that was answered by a different group of participants), we selected nine punctual verbs that were evaluated as iterative events in at least two-thirds of the trials. We also selected nine durative verbs that were evaluated as durative events in at least two-thirds of the trials (see Appendix 1).

In selecting the verbs for this study, we focused on verbs that were classified as [-telic], according to Smith (1997). For that reason, all durative verbs used in this study were activities. Deverbal nouns derived from accomplishments were avoided because they are characterized as telic; on the other hand, activities, such as caminhada(s) ‘walk(s)’ and pulo(s) ‘jump(s)’ in constructions such as fazer caminhada(s) lit.: ‘to do walking/to make walks’ and dar pulo(s) lit.: ‘to do jumping/to do jumps’ are characterized by unbounded events. Deverbal nouns derived from states cannot occur in a light verb construction in Brazilian Portuguese (e.g., *dar gostada(s) ‘to do liking/to make likes’) due to its [+static] feature (Scher 2005: 121); for that reason, they were not included in our study.

As for punctual verbs, all but one verb used in this study were semelfactives; one was an achievement (morder ‘to bite’). As demonstrated in Table 2, according to Smith (1997), semelfactive verbs are characterized as [–telic]. The one achievement verb used in the main test was judged similarly to the semelfactive ones in the first stimuli norming study (Appendix 1), which justifies its inclusion in the main study.

Based on the results of the first stimuli norming study and selection of verbs/nouns based on this first task, we did a second stimuli norming study (also based on Barner, Wagner & Snedeker 2008) in order to choose the dimensions of comparison to be used in the main study (Appendix 2). Out of a list that included eight options (volume, height, time, value, distance, intensity, depth, and area), the participants (who only participated in this study, 90 Brazilian Portuguese speakers) had to choose as many dimensions as they thought they would use for measuring an event (e.g., se você tivesse que responder a pergunta “Quem fez mais caminhada/caminhadas?”, quais critérios você usaria? [If you had to answer the question “Who did more walking/took more walks?” which criteria would you use?]). The most frequent non-number dimension selected by the participants for each verb was used to build the contexts in the main study (Table 3).

Among the selected nouns, four were nominalizations formed by a process that also generates a participle verb form: X (the verb stem) + -ada (three durative nouns – caminhada ‘walk’, corrida ‘run’, and pedalada ‘pedal’ – and one punctual noun – mordida ‘bite’). These four deverbal nouns could not be created by other means in Brazilian Portuguese and that is why they were included in the list of the chosen nouns. It is important to clarify that all other nouns used in the study could be formed by this same process of nominalization, but this (X + -ada) nominalization process was avoided because a deverbal noun formed via this nominalization process could promote a “diminutive effect” (Scher 2004: 103–104); that is, in dar uma pintada ‘give a paint’, it is implied that the event was short, which is an effect we wanted to avoid.

In a quantity judgment task (based on Barner, Wagner & Snedeker 2008 for English), we manipulated two conditions: the type of the event (durative or punctual) and the question form (verb, non-pluralized noun, pluralized noun):

Participants were presented with a short context followed by a target question. The short contexts presented two characters: one that performed fewer, but longer events (e.g., two long walks for two hours each – mass answer) and another that performed a higher number of short events (e.g., four short walks for 15 minutes each – count answer). Each participant answered 54 questions: nine questions including a durative verb/deverbal noun; nine questions including a punctual verb/deverbal noun; and 36 fillers unrelated to the manipulation. Participants were presented with only one type of question (non-pluralized noun, plural noun, or verb). Thirty-nine participants answered the list where all nouns were pluralized; 43 participants answered the list where all nouns were non-pluralized; 66 participants answered a list where the target sentence included a verb.

As illustrated by example (23), in constructions with durative denoting nouns, we used the light verb fazer ‘to do/make’: Quem fez mais caminhada? ‘Who did more walking?’ and Quem fez mais caminhadas? ‘Who took more walks?’ On the other hand, as illustrated by example (24), in constructions with punctual denoting nouns, we used the light verb dar ‘to give’: Quem deu mais pulo? ‘Who did more jumping?’ or Quem deu mais pulos? ‘Who did more jumps?’

The choice of light verb to create the target sentences with durative and punctual deverbal nouns is derived from the fact that, in Brazilian Portuguese, the use of the light verb fazer ‘to do/make’ with all punctual nouns would result in ungrammatical sentences, such as *Quem fez mais pulo? ‘Who did more jumping?’ *Quem fez mais grito? ‘Who did more screaming?’ Similarly, many durative nouns in constructions with the light verb dar ‘to give’ would either be considered ungrammatical or would be interpreted as referring to an object, rather than to an event. For example, Quem deu mais pintura? ‘Who did more painting?’ implies that we are talking about physical paints rather than the event of painting. Alternatively, we could have used target sentences such as Quem deu mais pintada?, Quem deu mais costurada?, and Quem deu mais desenhada?, which are legitimate in Brazilian Portuguese. However, such sentences were avoided due to the “diminutive effect” (Scher 2004) of constructions such as dar ‘to give’ + X-ada, as previously mentioned (Section 2), which would be incompatible with some of the contexts created in the target items. For example, in one item, we specified that a person is painting a bridge and the Maracanã stadium wall, which suggests a professional activity, not an incomplete or unstructured one, which would be incompatible with dar pintada lit.: ‘to give painting’. Hence, in order to provide uniform target sentences, all durative deverbal nouns were associated with the light verb fazer ‘to do/make’ and all punctual deverbal nouns were associated with the light verb dar ‘to give’.

Our baseline list included target questions with verbs (quem andou mais? ‘who walked more?’ / quem pulou mais? ‘who jumped more?’). It was critical to first determine whether durative and punctual verbs were indeed associated with different responses. That is, for the critical questions that included verbs, we expected that durative verbs would be more frequently associated with a mass answer; by contrast, punctual verbs were expected to be associated with a count answer.

Our second prediction was that for the critical questions that included bare singular nouns derived from punctual verbs, a count answer would be favoured. By contrast, we expected that a mass interpretation would be favoured for bare singular nouns derived from durative verbs. Our third and final prediction was that, if the plural morpheme blocks a mass interpretation (Müller 2002; Pires de Oliveira & Rothstein 2011b), then we would expect pluralized nouns to strongly favour a count answer, regardless of the lexical features of the noun.

As shown in Figure 2, the punctual aspectual feature was associated with a much higher relative frequency of cardinality responses with verbs and bare singulars. Plural nouns were associated with a high relative frequency of cardinality responses regardless of durativity/punctuality.

We used mixed effect logistic regression to analyze the probability of a cardinality response in experiment 1. Our model used items and participants as random effects, which was the maximal random-effects structure justified by the model comparison. We see in Figure 3 that there was significant interaction between aspect (durative/punctual) and category (verb, non-pluralized noun, pluralized noun), and there were significant main effects of each variable.

The marginal effects of the interaction term from our mixed-effects model are shown in Figure 4. We see that while durative verbs and bare singulars are more likely to receive a volume than a cardinality interpretation, those that have a punctual aspectual feature are more likely to receive a cardinality interpretation. By contrast, plural nouns are very likely to receive a cardinality interpretation regardless of their aspectual features.

In sum, the results confirmed our initial predictions. In the verb condition, nouns denoting durative events were much less likely to be associated with the count response (28.5% of count/cardinal responses) compared to punctual events (75.2% of count/cardinal responses). In the singular noun condition, the count response is more likely when the deverbal noun is derived from a punctual event (87% of count/cardinal responses) rather than a durative event (41.6% of count/cardinal responses). In the plural noun condition, punctual and durative events equally favour a count response (97.2% and 87.1%, respectively).

The results of this study show that deverbal bare singulars allow count and mass interpretations depending on the durativity/punctuality of the verbs they are derived from. Nouns that denote punctual events, regardless of their form (bare or pluralized), were more likely than nouns that denote durative events to be associated with a cardinal/count response.

These results provide further empirical support for the dissociation between mass-count syntax (i.e., absence or presence of number morphology on nouns) and countability. As predicted by the Number Asymmetry Hypothesis, mass syntax (absence of number morphology) does not trigger a mass/volume interpretation; that is, as predicted by Barner, Wagner, and Snedeker (2008), different dimensions (number, intensity, distance, volume, etc.) may be associated with a noun unmarked for number, while count syntax (pluralized nouns) is more likely to trigger a count/cardinal interpretation. In other words, these results provide further support for the claim that count syntax is not a requirement for counting.

Most importantly, these results are also compatible with Pires de Oliveira and Rothstein’s (2011b) proposal, according to which bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese are kind-denoting terms that allow both cardinal and volume interpretations. The present study shows that for deverbal nouns, a cardinal or volume interpretation for deverbal bare singulars depends on the lexical features of the verb the noun derives from: while nouns that denote punctual events favour a cardinal interpretation, nouns that denote durative events do not show the same preference. The results for durative deverbal nouns (41% of count/cardinal responses) are meaningful because they show that an unbounded event allows a range of interpretations that punctual events do not. In other words, it is not mass syntax per se that determines one interpretation or another; mass syntax allows either count or mass interpretations of nouns. The lexical features determine a particular interpretation of a noun. In sum, we have shown that lexical features of nouns – such as durativity/punctuality – impact the interpretation of bare abstract (more specifically deverbal) nouns in the same way as they impact the interpretation of bare concrete nouns (object-denoting bare singulars are more likely to be associated with cardinal responses). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental investigation of deverbal bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese.

One remaining question is whether the obtained results were at least in part influenced by the type of light verb used in the materials of the main study, since durative deverbal nouns were associated with the light verb fazer ‘to do/make’ (Quem fez mais caminhada? ‘Who did more walking?’) and punctual deverbal nouns were associated with the light verb dar ‘to give’ (Quem deu mais pulo? ‘Who did more jumping?’). As discussed in Section 2, it was not possible to choose a single light verb for all constructions with punctual/durative deverbal nouns. While durative nouns were compatible with fazer ‘to do/make’, punctual verbs were not. Contrariwise, while constructions with punctual nouns were compatible with the light verb dar ‘to give’, constructions with durative nouns were either ungrammatical or resulted in an interpretation where the speaker was referring to an object, rather to an event (Quem deu mais pintura? ‘Who gave more paints?’ is interpretable in a scenario where two or more people donated paints to a museum and one is asking who donated more paints). We hypothesize that since light verbs “seem to modulate or structure a given event predication, but not supply their own event” (Butt 2010: 72), the aspectual value of the deverbal noun – durative or punctual – is the major contribution to the semantics of the construction in the analyzed constructions.

We would like to conclude this paper by highlighting an interesting distinction between Brazilian Portuguese (a language where bare singulars are frequently licensed in episodic sentences) and English (a language where only a small set of nouns freely alternate between a mass syntax and a count syntax). As previously mentioned, in English, lexical semantics is overruled by mass syntax in the interpretation of sentences such as ‘Who has more stone?’ That is, in quantity judgment tasks (Barner & Snedeker 2005), English speakers point to a large stone rather than three small stones in order to answer this question. This could be partially motivated by the fact that the majority of nouns used in mass syntax are mass nouns in this language (interpreted preferentially in terms of size dimensions, such as volume, rather than cardinality). In Brazilian Portuguese, the use of bare singulars is not at all restricted to volume scenarios and is not marginal, or restricted to a small set of nouns. This is one of the possible readings of such nouns, but a cardinal/count reading is frequently available. As such, the difference between these two languages with respect to the interpretation of concrete object-denoting bare nouns might also be motivated by the frequency of use of bare nouns with a count interpretation. In other words, the level of impact of lexical semantics and count-mass syntax in the interpretation of nouns might be determined by the statistical frequency of a noun form with a particular interpretation (see Samuelson & Schiffer 2011) and by contextual information (as shown by Beviláqua & Pires de Oliveira 2014 for bare singulars in volume contexts).

The additional files for this article can be found as follows: