Open AccessNo need for a dedicated theory of the distribution of readings of English bare plurals
Author(s) -
Giorgio Magri
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
proceedings from semantics and linguistic theory
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2163-5951
pISSN - 2163-5943
DOI - 10.3765/salt.v0i0.2644
Subject(s) - implicature , existentialism , linguistics , distribution (mathematics) , reading (process) , semantics (computer science) , computer science , mathematics , philosophy , epistemology , programming language , pragmatics , mathematical analysis
This paper explores the idea that English bare plurals (BPs) uniformly have a plain existential semantics. And that their generic/universal reading arises through a mechanism of exhaustification modeled on Spector (2007), whereby the BP 'firemen' triggers the implicature ''not-only-some'' that the implicature ''only-some'' triggered by the corresponding indefinite 'some firemen' is false. The distribution of existential and generic readings of English BPs is thus completely determined by the availability of the 'only-some' implicature of the corresponding indefinite, without any need for a dedicated theory of the distribution of readings of BPs.