Semantic Approaches to Number

This chapter presents semantic frameworks that model the general capability of language to refer to atomic, as well as non-atomic entities. Two approaches are developed and discussed in detail throughout the chapter: a set-theoretic approach and an approach in which entities are modelled as atomic and plural individuals. After the formal introduction of the two approaches, the chapter shows how number marking in language can be represented and how other concepts related to semantic number, in particular, distributivity, cumulativity and collectivity, have been analysed in formal semantic theories.