Open AccessPlural in Lexical Resource Semantics
Author(s) -
David Lahm
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
proceedings of the international conference on head-driven phrase structure grammar
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1535-1793
DOI - 10.21248/hpsg.2018.6
Subject(s) - plural , semantics (computer science) , lexical semantics , computer science , argument (complex analysis) , lexical analysis , linguistics , resource (disambiguation) , simple (philosophy) , monotone polygon , lexicology , natural language processing , lexical item , artificial intelligence , lexical choice , mathematics , epistemology , programming language , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , computer network
The paper shows how the plural semanticideas of (Sternefeld, 1998) can be captured in Lexical ResourceSemantics, a system of underspecied semantics. It is argued thatSternefeld's original approach, which allows for the unrestrictedinsertion of pluralisation into Logical Form, suffers from a problemoriginally pointed out by Lasersohn (1989) with respect to the analysisoffered by Gillon (1987). The problem is shown to stem from repeatedpluralisation of the same verbal argument and to be amenable to asimple solution in the proposed lexical analysis, which allows forrestricting the pluralisations that can be inserted. The paper furtherdevelops an account of maximalisation of pluralities as needed toobtain the correct readings for sentences with quantiers that are notupward monotone. Such an account is absent in the orginal system in(Sternefeld, 1998). The present account makes crucial use of thepossibility to have distinct constituents contribute identical semanticmaterial offered by LRS and employs it in an analysis of maximalisationin terms of polyadic quantication.