Individual and Collective Action: Reply to Blomberg

Olle Blomberg challenges three claims in my book From Individual to Plural Agency (Ludwig, Kirk (2016): From Individual to Plural Agency: Collective Action 1. Vols. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.). The first is that there are no collective actions in the sense in which there are individual actions. The second is that singular action sentences entail that there is no more than one agent of the event expressed by the action verb in the way required by that verb (the sole agency requirement). The third, is that an individual intention, e.g. to build a boat, is not satisfied if you don’t do it yourself. On the first point, I grant that Blomberg identifies an important distinction between simple and composite actions the book did not take into account, but argue it doesn’t show that there are collective actions in the same sense there are individual actions. On the second point, I argue from examples that the collective reading of plural action sentences doesn’t entail the distributive reading, which requires the sole agency requirement on singular action sentences. This settles the third point, since it entails that if you intend to build a boat, you are successful only if you are the only agent of it in the sense required by the verb.

Some Notes on Atomicity and Distributivity in Japanese

We re-examine the semantic relation between atomicity and distributivity, which are considered relevant to the floating numeral quantifier construction (FNQ) in Japanese. It is shown that FNQ interpretation, distributive or non-distributive, may be to a large extent determined by pragmatic factors (including intonation) and real world knowledge shared by the speaker and hearer, rather than syntactic factors alone. This paper attempts the following three things: (i) it claims that there is a particular FNQ construction in Japanese, which is “NP-related” (unlike the normal FNQ construction which gives rise to a distributive reading, which is “VP-related”). (ii) It claims that this particular construction gives rise to a special focus reading. (iii) It offers a semantic/pragmatic account of this non-distributive reading.

Singular Group Agents

Chapter 3 identifies features of plural group agents (picked out using plural referring terms) to contrast them with singular group agents (picked out with grammatically singular referring terms). On the basis of the contrasts, it develops the prima facie case against a reductive account of singular group action sentences. The main contrasts developed are that (i) many singular group action sentences appear not to admit of a distributive reading, (ii) membership in a singular group agent requires a special social status, (iii) singular group agents persist through changes in membership, (iv) could have had different members, (v) can act through periods during which their membership changes entirely, and (vi) appear to be able to act though not all their members contribute, in contrast to plural group agents.

Agreement and interpretation of partitive constructions in Spanish: The dual nature of nominal features

This paper analyzes the role of the interaction between syntax and semantics in determining the mixed agreement patterns shown by Spanish partitive constructions when they appear as subjects. These patterns follow straightforwardly from the dual nature of nominal features (concord and index features organized in bundles) and from the assumption that Agree is a feature-valuation process in which the unvalued features of a Probe seek matching parallel valued features of a Goal under locality constraints and a maximization principle. After discussing previous approaches and justifying our syntactic analysis, we demonstrate that interaction for agreement between syntax and semantics is articulated via the nominal index features of the head nouns in the partitive structure, so singular and plural agreement, linked to the valuation/non-valuation of the number index feature, correlates with a group/atomic entity vs. a plurality/distributive reading, respectively, the meaning of the verbal predicate also being relevant. The empirical basis for this analysis is provided by a corpus search whose results are carefully described in the paper.

Why is children’s interpretation of doubly quantified sentences non-isomorphic?

The initial hypothesis examined in this paper is that Hungarian preschoolers assign to sentences containing two numerical quantifiers and a distributivity marker the same isomorphic distributive interpretation as Hungarian adults do. This hypothesis is partially refuted by Experiment 1, a truth value judgement task, and Experiment 2, a forced choice task, which show that children can access distributive readings, however, they tend to accept both isomorphic and inverse scope. Experiment 3, an act-out task, demonstrates that if there are no strong pragmatic cues to enforce a distributive interpretation, children’s primary interpretation is the collective reading. This leads us to the formulation of a new hypothesis: if the default reading of a doubly quantified sentence for preschoolers is the collective interpretation, in line with scope economy, then a distributive reading always represents the revision of the collective interpretation. This is confirmed by Experiment 4, showing that inverse answers have an increased reaction time. The new hypothesis can explain the lack of isomorphism in children’s interpretation of distributive scope as follows: since the distributive reading is dissociated from the linear flow of speech, the linear order of the two quantifiers does not necessarily determine scope order; children can base relative scope on the hierarchy of grammatical functions, on pragmatic cues, etc.

Plurality and distributivity in Yaeyaman wh-questions

In Yaeyaman, a critically endangered Japonic language of the Southern Ryukyus, there is a distinction made between singular and plural wh-questions, with plurality indicated by reduplication of the indeterminate (wh) pronoun. I argue that reduplication of the indeterminate is triggered by a morpheme RED that requires the presence of non-atoms in the set of Hamblin alternatives denoted by its sister. When attached directly to an indeterminate pronoun, RED requires the presence of non-atomic, plural entities. I then show that reduplicated indeterminate subjects can be interpreted distributively in pair-list answers, while reduplicated indeterminate objects cannot. After showing that the distributive reading of the subject indeterminate cannot be modeled straightforwardly using a distributivizing operator attached to the VP, I suggest that it reflects morphological agreement between the subject indeterminate and a clause-level RED morpheme, which requires the existence of plural answers in the set of alternative propositions denoted by the question. The semantics of clause-level RED requires a distinction between atomic and plural answers that parallels the distinction between atomic and plural entities. I also compare the Yaeyaman data with reduplication in Korean questions, showing that the semantics of RED differs between the two languages. Keywords: plurality, distributivity, indeterminates, wh-questions, pair-list answers, redupli- cation, Ryukyuan, Yaeyaman, Korean

Can Utilitarianism Be Distributive? Maximization and Distribution as Criteria in Managerial Decisions

ABSTRACT:Utilitarianism is commonly defined in very different ways, sometimes in a single text. There is wide agreement that it mandates maximizing some kind of good, but many formulations also require a pattern of distribution. The most common of these take utilitarianism to characterize right acts as those that achieve “the greatest good for the greatest number.” This paper shows important ambiguities in this formulation and contrasts it (on any plausible interpretation of it) with the kinds of utilitarian views actually defended by major proponents of utilitarianism. The aim is not to defend any of these views but to formulate them in a way that facilitates using them—or, more likely, some revised version suggested by the paper—in guiding decisions in business. The analysis provided here should also facilitate appraisal of utilitarianism, contribute to clarity in discussions of business ethics, and suggest a range of ethical standards that merit consideration for certain kinds of decision. If the results of the analysis are correct, a distributive reading of utilitarianism is at best misleading as a representation of its central thrust; it should not be described as the view that ethics calls for achieving “the greatest good for the greatest number”; and, understood as its major proponents take it, utilitarianism differs more from Kantian ethics than distributive readings imply and is more difficult to defend than it appears to be when viewed as intrinsically distributive.