Plurality and Quantification

The eight papers collected in Plurality and Quantification address three central issues in the study of plurality and quantification in natural languages. The first major theme regards algebraic approaches to plurals and quantification that have emerged as the leading paradigm for the study of these empirical phenomena over the last decade. The second main issue concerns the philosophical and mathematical foundations of concepts such as distributivity and collectivity. Finally, the authors address a broad range of empirical phenomena in Germanic and Romance languages, including the influence of Aktionsart on plural noun phrases, negative polarity, mass terms, plural quantification, and noun phrase conjunction. Many of the papers shed new light on the question of how many readings have to be assigned to plural sentences and on the respective consequences for the architecture of the syntax-semantics interface. Furthermore, most of the contributions contain insights which bear upon the study of the structure of universal grammar.Audience: Plurality and Quantification will interest linguists, graduate students in semantics and syntax, philosophers of language and philosophical logicians interested in the semantics of natural language.