Two kinds of distributivity

This paper argues that lexical and operator-based analyses of distributivity are not in conflict, but are both necessary components of any theory of distributivity that aims to account for all the relevant data. I use several contrasts between plural definites (e.g. the girls) and group NPs (e.g. the group of girls) to show that we need an operator-based analysis of distributivity; this kind of distributivity is available with plural definites but not with group subjects, which can be explained under the common assumption that group NPs denote atoms rather than sums and hence do not allow quantification over their individual parts. At the same time, we need a lexical theory of distributivity to account for the various distributive interpretations that we do find with groups; a formalisation of such a theory is outlined in the final section of this paper

Group distributivity and the interpretation of indefinites

This paper argues that lexical and operator-based analyses of distributivity are not in conflict, but should exist alongside each other to get a full account of all the relevant data. We use several contrasts between plural definites (e.g. 'the girls') and group NPs (e.g. 'the group of girls') to show that we need an operator-based analysis of distributivity; this kind of distributivity is available with plural definites but not with group subjects, which can be explained under the common assumption that group NPs denote atoms rather than sums and hence do not allow quantification over their individual parts. At the same time, we need a lexical theory of distributivity to account for the various distributive interpretations that we do find with groups. // The distributive interpretation of sentences like "The team is wearing an orange vest" provides a challenge to this story, but only if the indefinite 'an orange vest' is analysed as a quantifier. We argue, however, that it should be analysed as a property, and that the distributive interpretation is actually a case of two-place lexical distributivity over a property and a group. Support for this non-quantificational analysis comes from the observation that the class of predicates that allows a distributive interpretation in these contexts seems to be precisely the class of 'incorporation predicates' (Le Bruyn, De Swart & Zwarts 2015) that allow bare complements in many languages

Lexical distributivity with group nouns and property indefinites

In this paper I argue that there are two ways to derive distributive interpretations: one is based on a quantificational D-operator, the other is non-quantificational and involves lexical-conceptual reasoning along the lines of Scha (1981). I show that we need a theory of lexical distributivity to account for distributive interpretations with group nouns like 'team' and 'committee', as operator-based distributivity is systematically unavailable with these nouns. An apparent counterexample to this claim are sentences like "The team is wearing an orange vest", whose distributive interpretation seems to require a covert quantifier over team members to take scope over the indefinite. However, I argue that this is not a case of quantificational distributivity, but of two-place lexical distributivity over two arguments: a group and (an individual correlate of) a property

Collective nouns

A chapter written for the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number (eds. Patricia Cabredo Hofherr & Jenny Doetjes)

Portions and countability: a crosslinguistic investigation

We examine three constructions across several languages in which a mass noun is embedded in what appears to be a count environment, but the construction as a whole remains mass. We argue that the discussed phenomena - 'Q-noun' constructions like 'lots of water', bare measure constructions like 'kilos of sugar', and pluralised mass nouns in languages like Greek and Persian - all involve portioning-out of the embedded mass denotation. Adopting an overlap-based approach to the mass/count distinction (e.g. Rothstein 2011, Landman 2011, 2016, Khrizman et al 2015), we argue that the same portioning-out operator may result in either a count or a mass NP depending on whether (count) or not (mass) it is the syntactic head of the portion phrase. We provide a compositional semantics to account for this. The examined phenomena all share an inference of large quantity or abundance that, we argue, cannot be reduced to the lexical meaning of the portioning-out expression, nor to a multiplicity inference contributed by plural morphology. We show that our cases of mass portioning-out involve a total order ≤ on portion size and propose to analyse the abundance inference in terms of an uninformativity-based Quantity implicature, following the analysis of the positive form ("Mary is tall") in Rett's (2015) approach to adjectival gradability

The mountains are impure: the semantics of lexical plurality

This paper is concerned with the semantics of so-called plurals of extension, a class of lexical plurals such as mountains, cliffs, skies, Hebrides, and Pyrenees. While similar on the surface to regular plural nouns, they behave differently in certain regards, including their compatibility with determiners, interpretation in half of the N partitives and possibility to occur as weak definites. We will argue that plurals of extension denote predicates over impure atoms, predicting that theybehave as singulars from a semantic point of view and as plurals from a morphological point of view. The analysis will be extended to temporal plurals of extension and plural mass nouns

Weak ALL

[This is an unpublished manuscript still undergoing revisions; before citing/disseminating, please check for more recent versions. Comments welcome!] The tiny word 'all' and its cognates in other languages perform an impressive range of grammatical duties, which despite their various differences all share the same core meaning, usually described in terms of 'maximality', 'completion' or 'totality'. This paper shows that ALL, in fact, systematically alternates between this familiar maximality-inducing use and a non-maximal 'weak' use under which its contribution is more akin to 'many' or 'very'. It is proposed that the core meaning of ALL is not maximality per se but rather 'plurality enforcement': applying ALL to a plural entity ensures that it remains plural in the subsequent derivation. Maximal and non-maximal interpretations then arise from the interaction between plurality enforcement and independent semantic phenomena, in particular economy-based atomisation strategies, the formal properties of plural predication, existential quantification contributed by episodic predication over kinds, and the nature of comparison classes. Through its investigation of its central mystery, the paper provides empirical and theoretical support for the notion of 'impure atomicity' (that is, the singular interpretation of seemingly plural referents), as well as the relevance of semantic number in the kind and degree domains

Collective nouns

Collective nouns such as family, group, and herd combine properties associated with singularity or ‘oneness’ and properties associated with plurality, on all levels of grammar (lexical–conceptual, morphosyntactic, and semantic). Because of this property, they provide a unique window into the various factors that influence the expression and interpretation of grammatical number. This chapter starts out with a general introduction to the various conceptual and grammatical properties of collectives as well as the various ways in which they have been described and classified in different linguistic subfields. Then, it zooms in on their formal semantics, focusing on two central questions in particular: first, are collective nouns semantic plurals that are sometimes forced to behave like singulars, singulars that are sometimes allowed to behave like plurals, or simply ambiguous? And, second, how is the interpretation of an NP as either an indivisible atom or a quantifiable set influenced by morphosyntactic number marking

Does symmetry preclude the evolution of senescence? A comment on Pen and Flatt 2021

Funding Information: C.d.V. and H.K. were supported by Swiss National Science Foundation grant no. 310030B_182836. C.d.V. was also supported by an Academy of Finland grant (no. 340130, awarded to Jussi Lehtonen). E.Y.E. was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant no. U54 CA217376 (awarded to Hanna Kokko) and Swiss National Science Foundation grant no. P500PB_203022.Peer reviewe

Unravelling public sector innovation

Public organizations around the world are facing unprecedented challenges that affect their legitimacy. These challenges refer to issues such as the ageing population, climate change and youth unemployment. At the same time, these organizations are forced to cope with shrinking budgets. Further, they are confronted with growing demands from their employees who, among other things, increasingly seek flexible working programs. In order to address these challenges, public organizations are increasingly urged to develop and adopt new practices that amount to a discontinuity with the past. We refer to this as public sector innovation