Reference to kinds and subkinds in Polish

This paper investigates the syntax and semantics of direct kind reference in Polish. Taking Borik & Espinal (2012, 2015) as our point of departure, we argue that kind-referring nominals in Polish have the same properties as their counterparts in English, Spanish, and Russian. Specifically, they are definite and numberless. Even though Polish does not realize definiteness overtly, we present evidence from pronominal co-reference and object topicalization to show that Polish kind nominals are definite. We then point to a previously unaddressed contradiction regarding modified kinds. Borik & Espinal’s assumption that bare nouns denote singleton sets of kinds is incompatible with the intersective approach to kind modification (McNally & Boleda 2004, Wągiel 2014). To circumvent this issue, we introduce a subkind operator SK into the semantics, linking it to the projection of a subkind phrase in the syntax. This allows us to account for some novel data involving kind modifiers (e.g. Bengal) and kind classifiers (e.g. kind of). Tentatively, we suggest that the subkind head is a type of a more general classifier head (Borer 2005, Picallo 2006, Kratzer 2007).