Non-definiteness and plurality / / edited by Svetlana Vogeleer, Liliane Tasmowski

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910958931303321
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Amsterdam ; ; Philadelphia, : J. Benjamins, 2006
• ISBN: 9786612155291; 9781282155299; 1282155296; 9789027293176; 9027293171
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: vi, 358 p
• Collana: Linguistik aktuell, , 0166-0829 ; ; v. 95
• Altri autori (Persone): VogeleerSv (Svetlana); TasmowskiLiliane
• Disciplina: 401/.43
• Soggetti: Definiteness (Linguistics); Grammar, Comparative and general - Number; Grammar, Comparative and general - Numerals; Grammar, Comparative and general - Aspect
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Non-definiteness and Plurality -- Editorial page -- Title page -- LCC data -- Table of contents -- Introduction -- 1. Non-definiteness, plurality, and incorporation -- 1.1. Peculiarities of bare plurals -- 1.2. BPs denote properties -- 1.3. Non-definites and incorporated nominals -- 1.4. Incorporation: Summary and open questions -- 2. Alternatives to the incorporation approach: Relating non-definiteness and plurality to aspect -- 3. Numerical non-definites -- 3.1. Are numericals (generalized weak) quantifiers? -- 3.2. What kind of object is counted? -- 3.3. Can numerical noun phrases take wide scope? -- 3.4. Are three boys exactly three or at least three? -- Concluding remarks -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- References -- I. Non-definiteness, Plurality, and Incorporation -- The meaningful bounds of incorporation -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Semantics -- 3. What is 'incorporated'? -- 4. Restriction and incorporation -- 5. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Bare nouns, number and types of incorporation -- 1. Introduction ; -- 2. The distribution of bare plurals and bare singulars -- 2.1. Bare plurals -- 2.2. Restrictions on the distribution of bare singulars -- 2.3. Contexts that allow bare singular objects -- 2.4. Crosslinguistic variation -- 2.5. Summary -- 3. Syntactic category and syntactic composition of bare singulars and bare plurals -- 3.1. The syntactic category of bare nouns -- 3.2. Syntactic category and distribution -- 3.3. Pseudo-incorporation of bare singulars -- 3.4. Subjects cannot be pseudo-incorporated -- 3.5. Conclusions -- 4. Semantic type and composition of bare singulars and bare plurals -- 4.1. Property denotation and the bare plurals vs. bare singulars distinction -- 4.2. Existential bare plurals vs. bare singulars: Sets vs. properties -- 5. Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- The unmarked determiner -- 1. Introduction.; 2. Number interpretation -- 2.1. Number interpretation in Farkas &amp -- de Swart (2003) -- 2.2. Tasks a theory of number interpretation has to accomplish -- 2.3. Account -- 2.4. Plural forms are not ambiguous -- 2.5. When is a plural inclusive and when is it not? -- 2.6. Conclusion -- 2.7. An Optimality-theoretic account of number interpretation -- 3. A(n) as the least marked indefinite determiner -- 3.1. Definiteness -- 3.2. Partitives -- 3.3. Functional constraints -- 4. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Bare objects in Korean -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Preliminaries -- 2.1. Subject and object marking in Korean -- 2.2. Focus structure -- 2.3. F-structure marking in Korean -- 3. Bare objects, incorporation and referentiality -- 3.1. Leul-objects and bare objects -- 3.2. Correlates of object bareness -- 3.3. Bare objects and semantic incorporation -- 3.4. Bare objects and referentiality -- 4. Reconciling results -- Notes -- References -- Bare plurals in object position -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Hate and know: Existential and generic readings -- 3. A topic-based account: Cohen &amp -- Erteschik-Shir (2002) -- 4. A closer look at the data -- 5. Classification of predicates -- 6. Situation-semantic analysis -- 7. Final classification of predicates -- 8. Why do the psych-ES verbs lack eventuality arguments? -- 9. The existential inference: (How) does it relate to topic/focus? -- 10. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- II. Alternatives to the Incorporation Approach -- Aspectual implications of the semantics of plural indefinites -- 1. Indefiniteness, plurality, and aspect -- 1.1. The general perspective -- 1.2. Two classical questions and two basic assumptions -- 2. The role of des NPs in the telicity/atelicity contrast -- 2.1. The weak quantificational force of `des' -- 2.2. Weak quantificational force and the telicity/atelicity contrast.; 2.3. Indefinites lack determined reference -- 2.4. The combination of indefiniteness and plurality leads to atelicity -- 3. Des NPs in bare habituals -- 3.1. Homogeneous reference and plurality -- 3.2. Against a number-neutral semantics for des NPs -- 3.3. Habitual sentences as a temporal version of the dependent readings -- 4. Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Indefinites, quantifiers and pluractionals -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Motion-verb periphrases as the expression of temporal pluractional operators -- 3. The scope of pluractional operators -- 4. Scope effects and the nature of event pluralities -- 4.1. Motion-verb periphrases and nominal arguments -- 4.2. Sums and groups in the event domain -- 5. Concluding remarks -- Notes -- References -- Generic sentences and bare plurals -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Genericity -- 3. Bare plurals -- 4. Two problems involving bare plurals and generic sentences -- 5. Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- III. Numerical Non-definites -- Indefinite time phrases, in situ scope, and dual-perspective intensionality -- 1. The empty-preposition analysis and its problems -- 2. Discussing the data -- 2.1. Definiteness effects -- 2.2. Scope dependencies -- 2.3. Conclusion -- ; 3. An outline of my analysis -- 4. Dual-perspective intensionality -- 5. Formalizing dual-perspective intensionality -- 6. The analysis -- 7. The analysis predicts the correct scope dependencies -- 8. Conclusion -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Identity of the domain of quantification for numerals -- 1. Traditional analysis of numeral quantifiers -- 2. Numeral quantification in Japanese -- 3. Numeral quantification in English -- 4. Concluding remarks -- Notes -- References -- Scope shift with numeral indefinites -- 1. The problem: Scope shift with plural numeral indefinites.; 2. A puzzle: The subject effect disappears when it is not distributive -- 3. A processing account -- 3.1. A background digression: Scope shift is a costly operation -- 3.2. The size of the reference set -- Notes -- References -- Take 'five' -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Type shifting and polysemy -- 3. Theories in four flavours -- 4. Not just a matter of taste -- 4.1. Entailment patterns -- 4.2. Redundancy arguments -- 4.3. Predicates vs. quantifiers -- 4.4. Experimental evidence -- 4.5. 'At least' vs. 'at most' readings -- 5. Chocolate wins -- Acknowledgments -- References -- The semantics of paranumerals -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The semantics of (bare) numerals: A quick overview -- 3. Numerical comparatives: Plus de (`more than'), moins de (`less than') -- 4. Set comparators: Au moins (`at least'), au plus (`at most') -- 5. Summary: A brief comparison of numerals and paranumerals -- 6. Some paranumerals resisting classification -- 6.1. Exactement ('exactly') -- 6.2. Environ, à peu près ('about') -- 6.3. En tout ('in all') -- 7. Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index -- The series Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today.
• Sommario/riassunto: This collection of studies by leading scholars in the field focuses on the semantics of non-definite (bare and indefinite) plural NPs. The contributions in the first part concentrate on bare plurals and their cross-linguistic counterparts. They discuss applicability of the notion of 'semantic incorporation' to bare plurals by contrasting them to bare singulars, with the aim of accounting for the interaction between the semantics of number and the degree of (in)dependency of the NP with respect to the verb. The articles in the second part examine the relationship between the semantics of number and the semantics of aspect. The contributions in the third part concentrate on non-definite numerical noun phrases by addressing a range of fundamental questions such as: the semantics of indefinite time-phrases, numericals in classifier- and non-classifier languages, scope interactions, the at least- and exactly-readings, referential properties of numericals. The volume will be welcomed by linguists interested in the semantics of number in non-definite NPs.