Plural Superlatives and Distributivity

Collectivity, Distributivity, and the Interpretation of Plural Numerical Expressions in Child and Adult Language.

Sentences containing plural numerical expressions (e.g., two boys) can give rise to two interpretations (collective and distributive), arising from the fact that their representation admits of a part-whole structure. We present the results of a series of experiments designed to explore children's understanding of this distinction and its implications for the acquisition of linguistic expression...

Local and Flexible Distributivity and the Korean Non-nominal Plural Marker tul

Weak Distributivity implying Distributivity

Let B be a complete Boolean algebra. We show that if λ is an infinite cardinal and B is weakly (λ, ω)-distributive, then B is (λ, 2)-distributive. Using a similar argument, we show that if κ is a weakly compact cardinal such that B is weakly (2, κ)distributive and B is (α, 2)-distributive for each α < κ, then B is (κ, 2)-distributive.

Annotating Superlatives

This paper describes a three-part annotation scheme for superlatives: The first identifies syntactic classes, since superlatives can serve different semantic purposes. The second and third only apply to superlatives that express straight-forward comparisons between targets and their comparison sets. The second form of annotation identifies the spans of each target and comparison set, which is o...

Distributivity and Dependency

Sentences with multiple occurrences of plural definites give rise to certain effects suggesting that distributivity should be modeled by polyadic operations. Yet, in this paper it is argued that the simpler treatment of distributivity using unary universal quantification should be retained. Seemingly polyadic effects are claimed to be restricted to definite NPs. This fact is accounted for by th...