The paper argues that two distinct and independent notions of plurality are involved in natural language anaphora and quantification: plural reference (the usual non-atomic individuals) and plural discourse reference, i.e. reference to a quantificational dependency between sets of objects (e.g. atomic / non-atomic individuals) that is established and subsequently elaborated upon in discourse. F...

In three eyetracking studies, we investigated the role of conceptual plurality in initial parsing decisions in temporarily ambiguous sentences with reciprocal verbs (e.g., While the lovers kissed the baby played alone). We varied the subject of the first clause using three types of plural noun phrases: conjoined noun phrases (the bride and the groom), plural definite descriptions (the lovers), ...

We investigated the relationship between the acquisition of singular-plural morpho-syntax and children's representation of the distinction between singular and plural sets. Experiment 1 tested 18-month-olds using the manual-search paradigm and found that, like 14-month-olds (Feigenson & Carey, 2005), they distinguished three objects from one but not four objects from one. Thus, they failed to r...

The correct use of an affix, such as the English plural or past tense suffixes, is generally assumed to reflect mastery of the relevant morphological process. An alternate view holds that the use of an affix reflects not only morphological competence, but also additional factors including syntactic, semantic and phonological abilities. The present paper reports on a set of experiments in suppor...

Plural form franchising is modeled from an incomplete contracting perspective. Complete franchising is the unique, efficient governance structure only when the plural form externality is limited and the costs of investment are low for both franchisees. Governance structure choice is irrelevant when the costs of investment are high for all franchisees, because no franchisee will invest. Finally,...

Özet. Özne yönelimli süreç modelleme yaklaşımı daha doğru, kesin ve aslına uygun süreç bilgisine ulaşmak amacıyla süreç öznelerine (rol, aktör, vb.) ve bunlar arasındaki etkileşime odaklanır. Yaygın çerçevede, iş süreçleri çoğu zaman yukarıdan-aşağıya yaklaşımını kullanan süreç mühendisleri veya modelleme uzmanları tarafından modellenirler. Ancak bu yaklaşım, özellikle bilgi-odaklı çalışan kuru...

This paper reports on partial knowledge in two-year-old children's learning of the regular English plural. In Experiments 1 and 2, children were presented with one kind and its label and then were either presented with two of that same kind (A-->AA) or the initial picture next to a very different thing (A-->AB). The children in A-->AA rarely produced the plural. The children in A-->AB supplied ...

This paper discusses two important results on the expressive limitations of elementary languages that David Kaplan established a few decades ago, and clarifies how they relate to the expressive power of plural constructions of natural languages. Kaplan proved that such plural quantifications as the following cannot be paraphrased into elementary languages: Most things are funny. (1) Some critic...

It is claimed by Totereau, Thévenin & Fayol (1997) that French children understand the rule for spelling the plural inflection very early on. However, no evidence contradicts the alternative that they learn the spelling of a word's singular and plural forms by treating the two forms as entirely different words. We tested this by asking French first and second graders (85 six-year-old and 89 sev...

In Parts of Classes (1991) and Mathematics Is Megethology (1993) David Lewis defends both the innocence of plural quantification and of mereology. However, he himself claims that the innocence of mereology is different from that of plural reference, where reference to some objects does not require the existence of a single entity picking them out as a whole. In the case of plural quantification...