earticle

영어

This paper argues for the essential semantic uniformity between dependent plurals and ordinary plurals while pointing out the marginal differences between them. Both ordinary plurals and dependent plurals project the structure where a universal quantifier takes scope over an existential quantifier, pluralizing the Distributed Share by being translated into a pluralization operator, but the difference between them is that in cases of dependent plurals, the Sorting Key and the Distributed Share are to be distinct while, for ordinary plurals, the Sorting Key and the Distributed Share must be the same. In claiming so, this paper makes three refutations. First, it refutes Landman (2000) who argues that distributivity is necessarily the property of the verbal domain. This paper shows that the difference between plurality and distributivity should not be regarded as the difference between the nominal domain and the verbal domain since there are cases in which distributivity occurs at the nominal domain as well. Second, this paper opposes Zweig (2008) who insists that the interpretation of the dependent plural is an implicature that resides at the pragmatic level. This paper claims that the dependent plural is a semantic phenomenon that should be treated in an analogous way as the ordinary plural. Third, this paper also corrects the view of Zweig (2008), in arguing that dependent plurals are parallel with ordinary plurals, not the sub-case of bare plurals.