1 Overview

Since Chomsky (2000; 2001), we conventionally understand Agree as an operation whereby an unvalued feature, i.e. a probe, receives a value from a matching Goal. More recently, Béjar & Rezac (2003; 2009) and Kalin (2017; 2018; 2019) have argued that Agree also plays a role in licensing valued, interpretable features. In this paper, I propose an extension to Kalin’s nominal licensing system to the nominal domain and I argue that number features must also be licensed by Agree in Wolof. This proposal is empirically motivated by the number interpretation of bare nominals in this language.

Several languages allow for their nominals to occur in a bare form, i.e., without a determiner. Following De Swart (2021), I dub them ‘bare nominals’ (BNs), though I also use the term here to refer to nominals without overt number morphology, depending on language-specific properties. BNs in a few different languages are illustrated below.

Brazilian Portuguese has overt determiners and it distinguishes between bare singulars and bare plurals (Ferreira 2021). Mandarin, on the other hand, does not have determiners nor a singular vs. plural distinction, being a classifier language instead (Cheng & Sybesma 1999). Hindi, in turn, does have a singular vs. plural distinction, but bare nominals can be identified by the lack of -ko marking (Mohanan 1995). This brief description of three languages that allow for BNs in some capacity give us a glimpse of the heterogeneity of BN languages.

Nonetheless, a property these language share lies in the number interpretation of the BN when it is in the object position. As can be gleaned from the translations, the BNs in (1), despite the differences mentioned above, have a number-neutral interpretation, that is, they lack a commitment to a singular or plural interpretation. This property is also known as “general number” (Corbett 2000) and is documented in a series of unrelated languages, e.g. Kreyól (Déprez 2005), Halkomelem Salish (Wiltschko 2008), and Amharic (Kramer 2017), to name just a few, besides the languages showcased in (1). It is also taken to be a signature property of BNs that are used in the context of pseudo noun incorporation. Indeed, incorporated and pseudo-incorporated nominals in e.g. Hungarian (Farkas & De Swart 2003), Sakha and Tamil (Baker 2014) and in Niuean, investigated in Massam’s (2001) seminal work, are consistent with either a singular or plural interpretation. As such, number-neutrality is often taken to be a defining property of different types of BNs.

However, Dayal (2011) and Rinaldi (2018) cast doubt on this generalization, showing data from Hindi (Dayal), Spanish, Catalan, Greek, and Norwegian (Rinaldi) which indicate that the BNs in these languages are in fact singular. In this paper, I will show that Wolof (Niger-Congo, Atlantic; Senegal) also challenges the generalization that BNs are always number-neutral. In (2), we can see some instances of BNs in Wolof.¹

BNs in Wolof are exclusively singular. This property was first alluded to by Tamba et al. (2012), using the following data:

As we will see in §3, this claim can be backed up by the behavior of BNs regarding, for instance, the saturation of collective predicates and the binding of plural anaphors. (4) offers a preview of the data to be examined. It shows that BNs in Wolof cannot be the object of a collective predicate like dajale ‘gather’.

In contrast, number-neutral BNs in the languages mentioned above can saturate the same type of predicate.

Nonetheless, when a BN in Wolof is modified by a relative clause with plural morphology, it behaves as if it is a plural nominal. That the relative clause is plural can be inferred from the fact that it contains a plural class marker y prefixed to the relative complementizer u (both italicized in (6)). A BN thus modified is able to be the object of a collective predicate.

Not every nominal modifier, however, has the same effect in the number interpretation of a Wolof BN. In particular, if a BN is merged with a modifier that does not have any number morphology, it still behaves as if it were singular (7). This is evidenced by the fact that it cannot be the object of a collective predicate.

One of the differences between (6) and (7) lies in whether there is plural morphology in the modifier or not. The same difference regarding the presence or absence of a plural exponent will be shown to arise in two types of possessive constructions, one that has number morphology and one which does not. In view of this distinction, this paper aims at addressing the following questions:

In order to answer these questions, I propose that the interpretable number feature [+Num: pl] needs to be licensed by the operation Agree. In Kalin’s (2017; 2018; 2019) terms, this means that [+Num: pl] is a derivational time bomb that must be defused and the failure to do so causes the derivation to crash. This is only possible when the nominal spine has enough structure to host a number probe [Num: __]. The presence of such a feature can be diagnosed by the occurrence of morphemes that express number agreement morphology, including relative complementizer agreement in relative clauses (y in (6)) and possessum agreement. In the absence of a number probe in the nominal structure, only a [+Num: sg] BN will allow the derivation to converge, as this feature does not need licensing (i.e. is not a derivational time bomb).

This paper is structured as follows. In §2, I lay out some properties of Wolof, with a focus on the structure I propose for the full nominals in that language. With this background in place, in §3, I propose a truncated structure for BNs in Wolof. We then focus on the interpretation of BNs in Wolof. First, we examine data that indicate that they are narrow scope indefinites and then we examine comprehensive data that indicates that unmodified BNs in Wolof are not number-neutral but rather singular. In §4, in turn, we substantiate the claim that BNs in Wolof can have a plural interpretation, as long as a modifier is added that can have plural morphology. In §5, I propose an analysis that is based on derivational time-bombs (Kalin 2017; 2018; 2019): [+Num: pl] is a feature that must be licensed via Agree, but BNs, due to their truncated structure, cannot license such a feature, unless a number probe [Num: ___] is added via the introduction of an appropriate modifier. §6 concludes.

2 Basics of Wolof

Wolof is well-known for its rich system of sentential particles, i.e., morphemes that encode, among other things, information structure (Robert 1991; Zribi-Hertz & Diagne 2002; Torrence 2013; a.o.). Specifically, these are morphemes which are sensitive as to whether a constituent to its left is topical or focal, or if the whole sentence is new information, among other things. In (9) – and in most sentences in this paper –, we see the morpheme for neutral sentences, na. To the sentential particle is attached a morpheme that cross-references the φ-features of the subject, e.g. -ñu in (9b). This cross-referencing follows a nominative-accusative alignment: the subject of both transitive (9) and intransitive (10) verbs is cross-referenced.

Wolof is also characterized by rich nominal morphology. It contains an array of different determiners (italicized in (11)), which can be pre- or post-nominal. For recent literature, see Tamba et al. 2012; Torrence 2013; Harris 2015; Martinović 2015; 2017; Martinović 2019; Jordanoska 2020, a.o.).

In addition, these determiners contain a class marker (glossed as ‘cm’ and also italicized in (11)) affixed to them (Babou & Loporcaro 2016). Besides the class a noun belongs to, the class marker encodes number information (singular or plural). For instance, sàcc ‘thief’ remains constant in (11b) and (11c); whether the DP it heads is interpreted as singular or plural is correlated with the class marker used, b and y, respectively. The class markers in Wolof are listed below:²

Assuming a realizational framework of the grammar like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz 1993; 1994), a straightforward account of these class markers would be to assume that each corresponds to a different underlying Vocabulary Item. However, one may wonder about the asymmetry between the amount of singular and plural class markers – clearly, the former outnumber the latter. In addition, y can be described as a default plural marker, since it is used with most nouns; ñ is used with a small set of nouns denoting human individuals, the singular counterpart of which is g (Tamba et al. 2012: 895).

In view of these facts, I propose, instead, an analysis that is based on underspecified Vocabulary Items, still assuming a realizational framework. Specifically, I follow Kihm (2005), Acquaviva (2009), Kramer (2015), and Fuchs & van der Wal (2022) in assuming that gender and other root-specific properties are encoded in the categorizer that merges with the root. As such, I propose that the class a Wolof noun belongs to is a feature which is a specification of n, much like gender in e.g. Romance languages. Furthermore, I postulate a single head (AgrP; see more details in §5) that probes for a class marker and a number feature. It is this single head (Agr), I contend, that is exponed as the class marker morpheme in (12); this is a straightforward way to capture the fact that a single morpheme encodes both class and number information.

The Vocabulary Items that I propose for class markers (to reiterate, analyzed here as a single head that probes for a class marker feature, as well as number) are in (14). For concreteness, I represent the class feature with a Greek letter that corresponds to the singular class marker exponent.

With this background in place, in section §3, we move on to the main focus of this paper. We will see that BNs in Wolof are narrow scope indefinites that have an exclusively singular interpretation when unmodified.

3 Bare Nominals in Wolof

4 Adding a modifier: relative clauses vs. plain modifiers

In this section, we return to the number interpretation diagnostics employed earlier, but this time focusing on BNs that are modified. The generalization we arrived at in the previous section is that BNs in Wolof are singular and not number-neutral, unlike BNs in other languages. However, this generalization holds only if the BN is unmodified. In this section, we add relative clauses and adjectives to the BN. The former differ from the latter in the that only relative clauses contain a class marker, which is prefixed to the relative complementizer. Importantly, as we saw earlier, class markers in Wolof encode number properties. Adjectives, on the other hand, do not expone number features at all and so I call them ‘plain modifiers’. The broader generalization that we will arrive at is that BNs in Wolof are exclusively singular, unless they are modified by a nominal element that is able to expone number morphology. In that case, it can have a plural interpretation.

5 Analysis

Kalin (2017; 2018; 2019) proposes a theory of nominal licensing that is driven by the need of certain interpretable features to undergo Agree. Here, I assume Kalin’s (2019) formalization, which assumes the following typology of features:

Derivational time bombs are those interpretable features that, despite being interpretable, need to be Agreed with in order for the derivation not to crash. In other words, Agree “defuses” these features. This is illustrated in (74), where T bears a feature F to be valued (i.e. a probe). This feature Agrees with a matching feature in its c-command domain. This feature is, furthermore, marked as a derivational time bomb. Agree suffices to defuse this feature, thereby allowing the derivation to converge.

According to Kalin (2017; 2018; 2019), languages may differ in which features are derivational time bombs. Another point of variation is the range of licensers available in a given language. Licensers are additionally divided into two categories, primary and secondary. Primary licensers are [F:__] probes merged in every clause. Secondary licensers are probes that enter the derivation only when the derivation would crash otherwise. The occurrence of secondary licensers are regulated by the following principle:

A secondary licenser is activated iff the derivation will otherwise not converge.

The empirical basis for this view of nominal licensing is provided by DOM (Differential Object Marking, Kalin 2018) and by the PCC (Person–Case Constraint), which Kalin (2017; 2019) shows to share a number of similarities. The phenomena arise when interpretable features like [+participant] (PCC) and [+definiteness] or [+animacy] (DOM) are derivational time bombs. To be more precise, under this framework, DOM and the PCC are the byproduct of the occurrence of a secondary licenser triggered by the need of an interpretable feature to be licensed. A primary licenser cannot Agree with these derivational time bombs due to the presence of an intervening nominal that the primary licenser can Agree with and thus cannot skip over. Furthermore, as alluded to above, there may be different secondary licensers made available for different languages. For instance, in DOM languages where the differentially marked DP bears accusative case, v may be a secondary licenser. In languages where the differentially marked DP bears dative case, Appl may play this role (cf. Kalin 2018).

A toy example (from Kalin 2018) is provided by a DOM language where [+animate] objects are differently marked and T is a primary licenser, while v is a secondary licenser. In (76), the probe in T Agrees with the closest goal, the matching feature in the subject in Spec-vP. T cannot Agree with the lower object. A v that is able to Agree with the object must occur in the derivation as a secondary licenser because, otherwise, the interpretable feature in the object, a derivational time bomb, would not be defused, which would then cause the derivation to crash.

In this paper, I propose to extend this theory of nominal licensing from the clausal to the nominal domain. Specifically, I propose that the interpretable feature [+Num: pl] is a derivational time bomb in Wolof that needs to be Agreed with in order to be licensed.

One may wonder why [+Num: pl] and not [+Num: sg] is the number value that requires licensing via Agree. Crosslinguistically, it is not in fact uncommon for the feature [+Num: pl] to behave differently from [+Num: sg] (Nevins 2011).¹¹ For instance, in past participle agreement in Abruzzese (D’alessandro & Roberts 2008; D’Alessandro & Roberts 2010; Longenbaugh 2019), only [+Num: pl] triggers omnivorous agreement. In (77), the participle pittate ‘painted’ obligatorily agrees with a plural DP, irrespective of whether it is an object (77b) or subject (77c). The feature [+Num: sg] does not participate in this pattern.

Indeed, Harley & Ritter (2002), a.o. argue that grammatical number is best syntactically represented as a privative feature [+Num: pl], with a singular interpretation arising as the consequence of the absence of such a feature. While the present paper does not allow us to distinguish between bivalence and privativity, I take data like (77) to suggest that the feature [+Num: pl], as opposed to [+Num: sg], have some syntactic “prominence”, so that only the former may require licensing.

Going back to Wolof nominals, I assume that the [+Num: pl] in the nominals in this language are licensed by the number probe that is hosted by the following projections:

Furthermore, instead of drawing a distinction between primary and secondary licensers and assuming that their occurrence is regulated by the economy principle (75), I assume that the licensers in (78) are all that is available in the Wolof nominal domain and, additionally, I hypothesize that the occurrence of these licensers is regulated by restrictions imposed by the nominal spine in Wolof. More precisely, my proposal is that the action of an economy principle like (75) cannot be seen due to the restrictions imposed by the structure of nominals in Wolof, schematized in (13) and (17) above and repeated below for convenience. In these representations, I focus on [+Num: pl] features at the full and bare nominal’s NumP, though I assume, as a null hypothesis, that both full and bare nominals in Wolof may in principle be singular or plural.

With this system in place, we can turn to an explanation as to why BNs in Wolof are singular when unmodified, but plural only when merged with nominal elements that can expone number. A fact that must be reckoned with is that full nominals in Wolof can be either singular or plural, as see in the DPs that occupy the subject and object position of a sentence like (11a), repeated below.

All things equal, the same values for the number feature should be available for BNs as well. In the full nominal (13), the interpretable number feature in NumP is always Agreed with by Agr, which probes for both number and class. The need for the feature [+Num: pl] to be licensed by Agree (i.e. defused) can thus be satisfied. Conversely, in the BN in (17), there is no number probe. As such, if the numeration contains a plural Num, the derivation crashes because [+Num: pl] is not defused. Because no such requirement is imposed on [+Num: sg], the derivation converges. We have now arrived at an explanation as to why BNs in Wolof are exclusively singular when unmodified: of the two logically available derivations (one with a singular Num and one with a plural Num), only the one with a singular BN leads to a convergent derivation.

For this analysis to go through, we must assume that BNs in Wolof project NumP, which I assume, furthermore, to be either singular or plural, as a null hypothesis. It is the presence of a [+Num: pl] Num that triggers the need for licensing via Agree. However, a reasonable alternative is that BNs in Wolof, being truncated nominals, simply lack a NumP, in which case, another explanation would have to be provided for their singular interpretation. Nonetheless, I believe that assuming that Wolof BNs do not have a NumP may not be compatible with certain facts about the behavior of BNs when they are coordinated.¹²

A suggestion that BNs may have number is provided by the fact that they can trigger plural morphology in the verb when coordinated in the subject position. This pattern is dubbed ‘agreement resolution’ (Corbett 2006). (82a) shows that coordination of singular nominals trigger plural agreement necessarily. (82b) and 82c) show that this restriction also holds when the coordinated nominals are bare.

A similar effect is found in French.¹³ (83) is a baseline example that shows that coordinated DPs require plural agreement in the verb.

(84) in turn shows that coordinated infinitival clauses obey the same constraint.

Following Davies & Dubinsky (2001), we can conclude that sentences like (84) indicate that subject agreement provides evidence for the hidden number properties of the element that occupies the subject position – in this case, coordinated infinitival clauses. By analogy, the Wolof sentences (82b) and (82c) would be indicative that coordinated BNs have number properties as well.

Additionally, I assume that &P is φ-deficient and that these features are provided by the conjuncts, common assumptions in one at least one camp of agreement with and within coordinated phrases (Nevins & Weisser 2019: 11f; see also É. Kiss 2012), so that these features are “projected” (or “computed from”, Bhatt & Walkow 2013) from its conjuncts. For concreteness, the “percolation” of the the conjoined singular DPs into the &P is schematized below (based on Bhatt & Walkow 2013: fig. 1; see also Grosz’s 2015 Multidominance analysis). The precise mechanism through which the “percolation” of singular features from the conjuncts results in a plural feature in the dominating &P is beyond the scope of this paper.

If this analysis can be extended to Wolof, this would imply that BNs like those in (82b) and (82c) have number features. Given the interpretation of these sentences, the number feature of the BN is, more precisely, singular.

In addition, recall that coordinating singular full nominals (86) allows them to saturate a collective predicate and, additionally, that the same holds of BNs (87):

The result of the “feature percolation” in (85) is a plural &P that can satisfy the number requirement imposed by the collective predicate. If this analysis of agreement resolution is correct, this implies that both full nominals (86) and BNs (87) are singular.

Moreover, when one of the conjuncts is in the first or second person, the morphology cross-referencing a &P in subject position is in the 1st person plural or 2nd person plural, respectively:

Assuming that φ-features are represented in a hierarchical structural within the nominal (Harley & Ritter 2002) and, additionally, that the [person] feature is located lower than the [number] feature (Harbour 2016), the fact that a person feature is percolated to &P suggests that so is a number feature. The reason is that, if [person] (e.g. [1] and [2]) is dominated by [number], then the former entails the latter.

To summarize, I have argued that Wolof BNs project a NumP. This NumP can be either singular or plural, options that are independently available for full nominals in the language. A BN with a plural NumP causes the derivation to crash because the feature [+Num: pl] is not licensed or not defused.¹⁴ The feature [+Num: sg] does not impose such a requirement, allowing the derivation to converge. The byproduct is that BNs in Wolof are exclusively singular when unmodified.

However, if the BN merges with some nominal element that can expone a number feature, a plural interpretation does become available, along with a singular one. We can now restate this generalization as the presence of a number probe [Num: __]in the nominal structure the BN belongs to, the exponent of which is a plural morpheme and which suffices to license the [+Num: pl] in a BN (or in any nominal in Wolof that bears such a feature). This is the case of relative clauses (as opposed to plain modifiers) and of possessive nominals (as opposed to linker possessives). We analyze each nominal construction in turn.

We start with relative clauses. In this structure, even though the BN itself does not have a [+Num: pl] licenser (i.e. a matching probe that Agrees with it), there is an Agr at the CP layer of the relative clause. This analysis is motivated by the presence of a class marker prefixed to the relative complementizer u. Recall that I model the class marker morpheme as the exponent of a probe that is looking for both a class and a number feature (cf. (13)). Additionally, to ensure that the head of the relative clause is the goal targeted by Agr, I assume that Agr in relative clauses probe for a nominal that bears some Ā-feature (for concreteness, rel(ative)). With this derivation, the interpretable feature [+Num: pl] of the BN that is the head of a relative clause can be Agreed with and, hence, defused. This is why a BN can have a plural interpretation in this case. At the point of the derivation diagrammed in (89), the BN occupies its base generation position and is targeted for Agree by Agr. Afterwards, the BN raises out of the relative clause.

In plain modifiers, on the other hand, there is no probe that Agrees with the number feature in NumP. As a consequence, the interpretable feature [+Num: pl] cannot be defused, causing the derivation to crash. This is diagrammed in (90), which represents the BN object woykat brezilien ‘Brazilian singer’ in (66).

In brief, in this section, I provided answers to the questions this paper set out to address (repeated from (8)):

BNs in Wolof project a NumP, which can be either singular or plural, just like in other nominals in the language. However, a plural interpretation is precluded because unmodified BNs do not contain any number probe that licenses [+Num: pl], which I proposed to be a derivational time bomb, in Kalin’s (2017; 2018; 2019) sense. If the nominal structure contains a number probe, licensing goes through, so that the BN can now have not only a singular interpretation, but also a plural one. Number probes can be found in relative clauses, which agree in class and number with a BN (or full nominal) head. In contrast, plain modifiers do not contain any number probe, so that they retain the exclusively singular interpretation exhibited by unmodified BNs.

A prediction that emerges from this analysis is that a sentence containing a BN may be completely ungrammatical, lacking even a singular interpretation. This would be the case for nouns that are themselves plural, above and beyond the specification of NumP. A case in point would be pluralia tantum nouns.¹⁵ Babou & Loporcaro (2016) observe that jooy ‘weeping’ is an instance of such a noun in Wolof. Jooy is also a pluralia tantum noun for the speakers consulted for the present study. (92) shows that jooy can only combine with a plural class marker (y), both in the subject and in object position. (92a) and (92a) (originally from Babou & Loporcaro 2016 and confirmed by the aforementioned consultants) further demonstrate the plural requirement imposed by jooy with verbal morphology that cross-references the subject.

As also remarked by Babou & Loporcaro, teggin is another pluralia tantum noun:

Inspired by Harbour (2011), I encode the plurality requirement of pluralia tantum nouns in the categorizer n:

Under the assumption that whether or not a noun is a pluralia tantum noun is also an idiosyncratic property, (94) is aligned with this assumption (recall that I assume that root-specific properties are encoded at the categorizer level).

If (94) is the correct representation for jooy and teggin, the prediction, as mentioned, is that a BN pluralia tantum is going to be ungrammatical, since there is no nominal-internal probe to Agree with [+Num: pl]. The BN cannot “fall back” to a singular interpretation due to the pluralility encoded in at the n level. As shown in (95), the prediction is borne out by facts, as jooy and teggin cannot occur in a bare form:

The ill-formedness of the sentences in (95) is consistent with the analysis put forward here: there is no probe that can license the [+Num: pl] feature that is assumed to be inherent in pluralia tantum nouns.¹⁶

6 Summary and open issues

In this paper, we investigated BNs in Wolof, which, when unmodified, are exclusively singular, unlike their number-neutral counterparts in many other languages. More precisely, I provided an analysis to the generalization repeated below:

According to the analysis put forward here, BNs in Wolof are singular when unmodified because this is the only option that allows a derivation to converge: BNs can be either singular or plural, but a plural BN causes a derivation to crash because the interpretable feature [+Num: pl] cannot be licensed or defused. The nominal internal morphology that can appear in the nominal construction a BN is embedded within is the realization of a number probe [Num: __] that Agrees with [+Num: pl], thereby defusing it. If this analysis is on the right track, it provides support for the proposal that interpretable features may require licensing as well (Béjar & Rezac 2003; 2009; Kalin 2017; 2018; 2019; though see Coon & Keine 2021 for a diverging view).

The analysis also provides an account as to why BNs in Wolof are singular (when unmodified) and not number-neutral, as is the crosslinguistic tendency. The number interpretation of BNs in Wolof in the analysis advocated for here is the result of a conspiracy between the requirement to license [+Num: pl] and the restrictions imposed by the resources available in the nominal spine in Wolof. The latter regulates the availability of number probes that can defuse the aforementioned interpretable feature. As such, a potential reason why singular BNs are less common than number-neutral ones across BN languages is that the latter may be the result of one factor (e.g. the absence of a projection like NumP, see fn. 12), while the former may be the consequence of a conjunction of factors (e.g. the need to license a [+Num: pl] and the language-specific availability of number probes that can Agree with such a feature).

Abbreviations

I follow the Leipzig glossing rules, with the following additions: cm = class marker, iter = iterative, lnk = linker, na = sentential particle for neutral sentences (na), and prep = preposition.

Supplementary file

The supplementary files for this article, entitled ‘Appendix’ can be found here: DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.8581.s1

Competing Interests

The author has no competing interests to declare.