Feature licensing and the number interpretation of bare nominals in Wolof

Abstract

Crosslinguistically, bare nominals (BNs) are often number-neutral, i.e., their number interpretation does not imply any commitment to a singular or plural interpretation. I show that BNs in Wolof are singular, unless plural morphology is exponed within the nominal. I propose a version of Kalin’s (2017; 2018; 2019) framework of nominal licensing whereby certain interpretable features require licensing by the operation Agree, i.e. they are “derivational time bombs” that must be “defused” by this operation. Specifically, I argue that the feature [+Num : PL] in Wolof nominals fall under this category. I assume that all nominals in Wolof, bare and full, can in principle be singular or plural. In the derivation of a sentence containing a BN in the object position, if the BN is [+Num : SG], it converges because there is no derivational time bomb to be defused. Conversely, if the BN is [+Num : PL], no probe can Agree with this feature, causing the derivation to crash because a derivational time bomb was defused. The BN is obligatorily singular because this is the only possible convergent derivation. However, if the BN merges with nominal structure that contains a number probe, [+Num : PL] can be defused, so that the corresponding construal can arise. This probe surfaces as an agreeing relative complementizer or possessum agreement. The singular interpretation of BNs in Wolof thus arises as a conspiracy between the need to license [+Num : PL] and the restrictions and resources available within the nominal a BN is embedded into. This analysis offers an analysis as to why BNs in Wolof do not follow the number-neutrality tendency found in other BN languages and it also provides support for the view that the licensing of interpretable features may be a driving force in the syntactic derivation.