Dependent plurals and three levels of multiplicity

The paper focuses on the semantics of distributivity, grammatical number, and cardinality predicates (numerals and modifiers like several). I argue that constructions involving so-called ‘dependent plurals’, i.e. plurals lacking cardinality predicates occurring in the scope of certain quantificational items such as all and most (e.g. All the girls were wearing hats), pose a challenge to familiar semantic frameworks that distinguish between two sources of multiplicity: mereological plurality and distributive quantification. I argue that dependent plural readings should be analysed as distinct both from cumulative readings and distributive readings, in the classical sense. I demonstrate how this can be accomplished in a semantic framework where expressions are evaluated relative to sets of assignments, or plural info states (van den Berg, in Stokhof and Torenvliet (eds) Proceedings of the 7th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1990, in Dekker and Stokhof (eds) Proceedings of the 9th Amsterdam Colloquium, ILLC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1994, Some aspects of the Internal Structure of Discourse. The Dynamics of Nominal Anaphora. PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 1996). The specific formal implementation is based on a modified version of Brasoveanu’s (Structured nominal and modal reference. PhD thesis, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 2007, Linguist Philos 31(2):129–209. 10.1007/s10988-008-9035-0, 2008) Plural Compositional DRT. In this framework we are able to distinguish between two types of distributivity: weak distributivity across the assignments in a single plural info state and strong distributivity across multiple info states. I argue that both of these types of distributivity play a role in the semantics of natural language, accounting for the contrasting properties of ‘singular quantifiers’, such as each and every, and ‘plural quantifiers’, such as all and most. The contrasting properties of bare plurals and plurals involving cardinality modifiers are analysed in terms of the distinction between state-level and assignment-level (mereological) plurality.

Collectivity and cumulativity

This chapter accounts for differences within the class of collective predicates, as exemplified by the contrast between all the students gathered and *all the students were numerous (Dowty 1987, Winter 2001), for the limited ability of all to take part in cumulative readings, and for its ability to license dependent plurals (Zweig 2009). Stratified reference is used to formulate meaning postulates that capture the fact that predicates like gather that give rise to distributive inferences to subgroups, and to formulate the semantics of all in terms of a subgroup distributivity requirement.

Reconciling Dependent Plurals with "Each Other"

No abstract.

Reconciling Dependent Plurals with "Each Other"

No abstract.