Specific classifiers versus unspecific bare nouns

•Report of typological rarity in Hmu, a minority language in the P.R. of China.•Specific and unspecific reference encoded in bare classifiers and bare nouns.•Specific reference theoretically defined as unique existence.•Unspecific reference defined as anti-unique existence.•Problems of the choice-function approach exposed.

Based on rare language data from a Chinese minority language, we argue for a particular theory of specific and unspecific reference. We understand specific versus unspecific reference as the properties of picking out one versus not-one (set of) referents in the discourse context. The analysis is reminiscent of Schwartzschild (2002)'s singleton theory and an alternative to the Choice Function approach. We further argue that unspecific reference conversationally implicates other reference types such as 'universal', 'generic' or 'distributive' reference. The Hmu language (Miao-Yao: China) is cross-linguistically rare in encoding the contrast of specific versus unspecific reference by a minimal pair, by bare classifiers and bare nouns.