• Lexical distributivity with group nouns and property indefinites

    Author(s):
    Hanna de Vries (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Item Type:
    Conference paper
    Conf. Title:
    43rd meeting of the North Eastern Linguistic Society (NELS 43)
    Conf. Org.:
    City University of New York
    Conf. Loc.:
    New York City, USA
    Conf. Date:
    October 2012
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M65M62653
    Abstract:
    In this paper I argue that there are two ways to derive distributive interpretations: one is based on a quantificational D-operator, the other is non-quantificational and involves lexical-conceptual reasoning along the lines of Scha (1981). I show that we need a theory of lexical distributivity to account for distributive interpretations with group nouns like 'team' and 'committee', as operator-based distributivity is systematically unavailable with these nouns. An apparent counterexample to this claim are sentences like "The team is wearing an orange vest", whose distributive interpretation seems to require a covert quantifier over team members to take scope over the indefinite. However, I argue that this is not a case of quantificational distributivity, but of two-place lexical distributivity over two arguments: a group and (an individual correlate of) a property.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Conference proceeding     Show details
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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