Veneeta Dayal has led a team of scholars into an extensive investigation of the morphosyntax/semantics mapping of bare nominals across languages. It has produced The Open Handbook of (In)definiteness: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Interpreting Bare Arguments, a volume which is forthcoming with MIT Press.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide tackles a central question about languages without articles: are bare nouns in such languages ambiguous between definite and indefinite? This question is explored through the lens of a questionnaire that aims to identify different aspects of (in)definiteness in a theory-informed but theory-neutral way, providing a pointwise comparison of bare arguments in seven unrelated languages. The empirical generalizations that emerge are then analyzed within the neo-Carlsonian approach to noun phrase semantics.  

The event will have Veneeta Dayal present her project and volume. In addition, 10 other invited scholars will engage with various aspects of the project and volume, from the case studies to the questionnaire, as well as the theoretical and empirical insights.

The workshop as a whole will showcase the significance of cross-linguistic semantics in furthering our understanding of natural language grammar.