The Distributive Entailments of Collective Predicates

This paper deals with predicates that allow both collective and dis-tributive construals when combined with a plural subject. I present evidence that even on the collective construal, these predicates entail downward from groups to their members, and use this result as the basis of an attempt to resurrect Har-nish's pragmatic analysis of exhaustiveness ((Harnish, 1976]). I then incorporate the distributive subentailments of Dowty, 1986] to extend the account to \team credit" predication. Finally, I ooer some speculations about the impact of these conclusions on the expression of the cooperative/distributive distinction in terms of event semantics. 1 Background For the purposes of this paper, I will distinguish between types of predica-tional expressions, using the following terminology: (20.1) Type I: cannot be applied to individuals 1 A. pure cardinality (e.g. be numerous) B. pure collective (e.g. gather, meet, see each other) Type II: applicable to individuals A. mixed (e.g. lift the piano, write a paper) B. pure distributive (e.g. die, be asleep) This paper will focus on the application of mixed predicates to plural subjects , which allows both distributive and collective construals. Intuitively, 1 The two subclasses of Type I can be distinguished by the felicity of their combination with all: cf. the men all gathered vs. *the men are all numerous.