A note on generic quantification and the ontology of twins and bikini
Indefinite plural generic sentences in French have very limited distributions. In particular, in the absence of nominal modifiers, modals or constrastive prosody, the set of nominal predicates that can appear in subject position includes only so-called “inherently plural predicates” like twins. Plur...
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| In: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/rlv, |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Language: | Anglais |
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Recherches linguistiques de Vincennes
2012
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| Online Access: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Summary: | Indefinite plural generic sentences in French have very limited distributions. In particular, in the absence of nominal modifiers, modals or constrastive prosody, the set of nominal predicates that can appear in subject position includes only so-called “inherently plural predicates” like twins. Pluralized sortal predicates like squares are banned unless modified. The paper builds on the assumption that generic indefinite statements are quantificational (contrary to plural definite statements in French) and that quantification requires “individuation”. It strives to explain why twins denotes a plural individual whereas squares does not. It considers various views that have used extensional tools to account for the ontology of the entity denoted by inherently plural predicates, and proposes an explanation based on the intensional notion of coordinated whole. The ontological view that is proposed complements the syntactic view that twins is a reciprocal predicate. |
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