7. Bare nouns in Palenquero

The present article argues that the traditional accounts of Palenquero's article system are fundamentally flawed. Schwegler's revisionist analysis is largely based on data he had collected in situ, but also relies on Moñino (in press), who similarly questions the traditional accounts of the Palenquero article system. Mo ñ ino and Schwegler have reached a consensus as regards two key points: in their view, (1) Palenquero has noun phrases consisting of just a bare noun; and (2) a striking property of these bare nouns is their non-specification for number (they are neither singular nor plural). One of the objectives of this study is to offer a comparison between Schwegler and Mo ñ ino's analysis of Palenquero ma, and to outline why they – independently so – reject the traditional views on the matter. In so doing, Schwegler shows that the Palenquero lexicon emphasizes the role of context rather than overt morphology or lexical structure. This new approach represents a radical departure from earlier analyses, as it renders all Palenquero nouns “transnumeral.” As will become apparent, Mo ñ ino's and Schwegler's findings coincide on several major points of grammar, but differ on the more theoretical issue concerning the genesis of ma.