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Other Ling Newsletters
« End-of-Semester Lunch | Main | Correction: Mike Frank Spoke on December 10»
Roger Schwarzschild Colloquium
Roger Schwarzschild
Rutgers
Mass nouns and stubbornly distributive predicates
Abstract
In the first part of the talk I introduce a class of adjectives that, for some unexplained reason, exclude a collective reading of a plural subject. These I call "stubbornly distributive predicates". These predicates are then used to probe the question of whether mass noun phrases are semantically plural or singular (the question has been answered both ways in the literature). I conclude that neither answer is completely correct. I'll claim there is a distinction between singularities and nonsingularities which is not a mere type distinction subject to the vicissitudes of a type shifter. Pluralities are a special case of non-singularities --- the ones that have singularities as components and only some mass noun phrases refer to pluralities. I will show that the account is agnostic about 'minimal water parts' and that furthermore, discourse about water molecules is possible and is not expected to affect the way we talk about 'water'. The model for understanding the connection lies in the difference between plurals and group terms (the roses v. the bunch; the stars v. the cluster).
Recommended reading
Barker, Chris. 1992. Group terms in English: Representing groups as atoms. Journal of Semantics 9:69--93.
Burge, Tyler. 1977. A Theory of Aggregates. Noûs 11(2):97-117
Schwarzschild, Roger. 1996. Pluralities. Kluwer Academic Publishers (chapter 9).