Number-neutral bare plurals and the multiplicity implicature

Bare plurals (dogs) behave in ways that quantified plurals (some dogs) do not. For instance, while the sentence John owns dogs implies that John owns more than one dog, its negation John does not own dogs does not mean "John does not own more than one dog", but rather "John does not own a dog". A second puzzling behavior is known as the dependent plural reading; when in the scope of another plural, the 'more than one' meaning of the plural is not distributed over, but the existential force of the plural is. For example, My friends attend good schools requires that each of my friends attend one good school, not more, while at the same time being inappropriate if all my friends attend the same school. This paper shows that both these phenomena, and others, arise from the same cause. Namely, the plural noun itself does not assert 'more than one', but rather the plural denotes a predicate that is number neutral (unspecified for cardinality). The 'more than one' meaning arises as an scalar implicature, relying on the scalar relationship between the bare plural and its singular alternative, and calculated in a sub-sentential domain; namely, before existential closure of the event variable. Finally, implications of this analysis will be discussed for the analysis of the quantified noun phrases that interact with bare plurals, such as indefinite numeral DPs (three boys), and singular universals (every boy)

Contextual restrictions on cumulativity

This paper revisits the semantic variability of sentences with simple plural (in)definites in English and German, which permit distributive, cumulative and paired-cover construals. I argue that this variability reflects context-dependency rather than LF ambiguity (Schwarzschild 1996) and that the selection of a particular construal in context is driven by the QUD in the same way as the choice between maximal and non-maximal construals of plural definites (Malamud 2012; Križ 2015; Križ & Spector 2020). I then develop a new semantics for plural predication on which non-distributive and non-maximal construals form a natural class. The system extends the idea that non-maximality involves truth-value gaps (e.g. Križ 2015) to non-distributive construals by making use of Schmitt’s (2019) ‘plural projection’ framework, in which plural sentences involve special composition rules

Accounting for semantic integration: notional and grammatical effects in number agreement

Notional and grammatical number affect agreement in language production. To explore their workings, we investigated how semantic integration, a type of conceptual relatedness, produces changes in agreement (Solomon & Pearlmutter, 2004). Notional and lexical-grammatical number offer alternative accounts of these effects. The notional hypothesis is that changes in number agreement reflect differences in referential coherence: More coherence yields more singularity. The lexical-grammatical hypothesis is that changes in agreement arise from competition between nouns differing in grammatical number: More competition yields more plurality. These hypotheses make opposing predictions about semantic integration. On the notional hypothesis, semantic integration promotes singular agreement. On the lexical-grammatical hypothesis, semantic integration promotes plural agreement. We tested these hypotheses with agreement elicitation tasks in three experiments. All three experiments supported the notional hypothesis, with semantic integration or notional plurality creating faster and more frequent singular agreement. This implies that referential coherence mediates the effect of semantic integration on number agreement

Constraints on Quantificational Domains: Generic Plural des-Indefinites in French

Indefinite plural generic in French and quantification over groups. Later criticized in Mari and Martin Going Romance 2008

Scalar implicatures with discourse referents: a case study on plurality inferences

This paper explores the idea that scalar implicatures are computed with respect to discourse referents. Given the general consensus that a proper account of pronominal anaphora in natural language requires discourse referents separately from the truth-conditional meaning, it is naturally expected that the anaphoric information that discourse referents carry play a role in the computation of scalar implicatures, but the literature has so far mostly exclusively focused on the truth-conditional dimension of meaning. This paper offers a formal theory of scalar implicatures with discourse referents couched in dynamic semantics, and demonstrates its usefulness through a case study on the plurality inferences of plural nouns in English

Constraints on Quantificational Domains: Generic Plural des-Indefinites in French

Indefinite plural generic in French and quantification over groups. Later criticized in Mari and Martin Going Romance 2008

Context Dependence and Procedural Meaning: The Semantics of Definites

This thesis argues that there is a theoretically interesting connection between members of the intuitive category of context-dependent expressions, including "we", "tall", "local", "every man", "the woman", "it", "those donkeys" and so on. A treatment of the linguistic meaning of these expressions will be proposed based on the idea that their use raises issues for the audience about the proper understanding of the utterances in which they occur. The proposal will be developed in terms of a semantics for questions, which draws on the idea that to know the meaning of a question is to know what would count as an answer. It can be summarised along similar lines: to know the meaning of a context-dependent expression is to know what properties or relations (of the appropriate type) it could be used to express. The framework in which this idea will be developed can account for why the expressions that are given this issue-based treatment can also be given dependent, bound readings. The class of definite expressions, including descriptions and pronouns, is analysed in detail. A quantificational approach, where the determiner is existential, is assumed for all forms of definiteness. In all cases, the restrictor is interpreted by an atomic definite concept. The audience's grasp of the properties which definite concepts express is the result of inferential processes which take the linguistic meaning of a definite expression as input. These processes are constrained by pragmatic principles. The analysis of context-dependent expressions is extended to account for dependent interpretations. A treatment of donkey sentences that accounts for their variable quantificational force is shown to follow naturally from the analysis. A pragmatic account of infelicitous uses of definites is provided and shown to compare favourably with that provided by dynamic semantic theories. Also, a novel treatment of plural definites is provided which accounts for their variable quantificational force

Flexible Summativity: A Type-Logical Approach to Plural Semantics

This paper explores some theoretical properties of summativity, a generalization of cumulativity. It presents an approach to plural semantics in which summativity can apply not only to lexical predicates, but also to partially saturated predicates. It is shown how this approach can be tied to an explicit type-logical syntax

Some features of the part-of relation with respect to verbal predication

The first part is an historical review of the "part-of" relations. In the second part, properties linked to this relation in mathematics, information systems and linguistics are treated. In part III deals with the part-of relation and the verbal predication.Nous commençons par une présentation historique des définitions de la relation "partie de", puis nous en explorons les principales propriétés en mathématiques, sciences de l'information et linguistiques Enfin, nous montrons comment elle est omniprésente dans le domaine de la prédication verbale