Bare (determinerless) singular NPs in Brazilian Portuguese have been variously analyzed as indefinite terms, as kind terms, or as ambiguous between the two. It has furthermore been noted (Schmitt & Munn 1999 and subsequent literature) that bare singulars, unlike bare plurals, are degraded in the preverbal subject position of episodic sentences but that their acceptability is improved when they are embedded in a list. We conducted an experimental study examining the effects of NP type, syntactic position, and list context on the acceptability of bare NPs in Brazilian Portuguese. Our results indicate that the low acceptability of bare singulars in the subject position of episodic sentences results from the additive effects of three separate factors, rather than from a constraint against bare singulars in subject position. Implications of these findings for theories of bare‐NP interpretation in Brazilian Portuguese are discussed.

中文翻译：

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再看巴西葡萄牙语中情节句中单数NP的可接受性

对巴西葡萄牙语中的Bare（不确定）单数NP进行了各种分析，例如不确定性，亲和性或两者之间的歧义。它进一步被注意到（Schmitt＆Munn 1999以及随后的文献），与单数形式不同，单数形式的单数形式在句子的谓词主语位置上有所降低，但将其嵌入列表中后，其可接受性得到了提高。我们进行了一项实验研究，研究了NP类型，句法位置和列表上下文对巴西葡萄牙语中裸NP可接受性的影响。我们的结果表明，在情节性句子的主语位置中，单数形式的接受度较低，这是由于三个单独因素的累加效应引起的，而不是由于对主语位置上的单数形式的限制。讨论了这些发现对巴西葡萄牙语中的裸NP解释理论的启示。