This paper considers the underspecification of distributive and collective readings of plural NPs in Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp and Reyle 1993) and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (Pollard and Sag 1994). We address some shortcomings in previous approaches in the underspecification literature, namely issues related to the assumption that plural NPs are semantically ambiguous betw...

The interpretation of sentences with plural determiners and collective predicates is a highly complex problem that has not been sufficiently investigated, despite many advances in theories of plurality and quantification. This paper proposes a new typology of predicates that serves as a basis for a general treatment of singular and plural noun phrases within generalized quantifier theory. Secti...

this paper revisits John Stuart Mill’s famous proposal for plural voting, according to which universal suffrage is conjoined with the possibility for some to claim and utilise multiple votes if they meet a particular set of qualifications . We observe the proposal in the light of Mill’s own historical context, but we also evaluate it with respect to the changing social and political conditions ...

The loss of regular case endings in modern German has led to highly syncretic noun paradigms that neutralise many of the distinctions retained in more conservative determiner and adjective paradigms. Genitive and dative are, for all intents and purposes, the only cases marked in noun paradigms. Strong nonfeminine nouns have a genitive singular in -s. Strong nouns whose plural ends in a schwa or...

We build and describe an agent-based model: the Surprise Game. The game comprises a “world” of 30 fi rms, each of which has to survive (and, if possible, prosper) in its environment, which is nothing more than the other 29 fi rms. Each fi rm has to latch onto one or other of the four strategies that are predicted by the theory of plural rationality but has to relinquish that strategy and latch ...

Previous work on object classification preferences shows that speakers of languages that lack morphological plural marking (like Yucatec and Japanese) display a tendency to match objects by common material, while speakers of languages with morphological plural marking (like English) display a tendency to match objects by common shape. The present paper compares categorisation preferences of Eng...

This study examined whether singular/plural marking in a language helps children learn the meanings of the words 'one,' 'two,' and 'three.' First, CHILDES data in English, Russian (which marks singular/plural), and Japanese (which does not) were compared for frequency, variability, and contexts of number-word use. Then young children in the USA, Russia, and Japan were tested on Counting and Giv...