Bare "institutional-locative" singulars in Rioplatense Spanish

Abstract

In this squib we identify a group of bare singular count nominals in Rioplatense Spanish that can occupy any syntactic position. Even though it is considered to be a lexically restricted phenomenon, we argue for their productivity and systematic behavior. Considering that Spanish has rich determiner system, we depart from a semantic perspective to explain why these bare nouns appear in argument positions. To this end, we present some tests that aim to show their singular individual definite reading. In particular, our proposal assimilates them into the class of proper names, in that they are DPs which establish a biunivocal relation with their referent. However, they differ from canonical proper names, given that they are originally common nouns and on top of their literal meaning, they also add some semantic enrichment. That is to say, they are interpreted as a location that belongs (in broad terms) to the speaker, who performs a stereotypical task in there. This data suggests that the paradigm of Spanish bare singulars is broader than what the literature has so far attested.