2. Bare nouns and the nominal domain in Santome

This paper investigates the role of BNPs within the nominal system of Santome, the major Gulf of Guinea Creole. In the first part of the paper, we sketch an analysis of the DP focusing on the syntax and semantics of the modifiers that express definiteness, number and specificity and their interaction. In the second part, it will be shown that BNPs fulfil a wide range of semantic functions in virtually all syntactic positions, predicative and argumental. Therefore, we propose a unified hypothesis that accounts in for both lexicalized and null determiners as an integrated system. It is argued that all determiners are inherently specified for definiteness and number. However, we consider number parasitic on definiteness (under D⁰) and, therefore, Santome's syntax does not exhibit an independent projection for number. It is further shown that, especially in the case of BNPs, discourse anchoring and pragmatics are crucially in order to derive the correct interpretation.