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 the special anaphoric (dependent) use of definites. Further evidence concerning various plurals, island constraints and cumulative quantification are shown to support this claim. In addition, it is shown that also the evidence against a simple atomic version of unary distributivity is not decisive. In the (uncommon) cases where distributivity with definites is not strictly atomic, they can be analyzed as dependent on implicit quantifiers.