On the Interpretations of Bare PIurals with Individual- and Stage-Level Predicates

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1998
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
The distinction between stage- and individual-level predicates has proven useful to a number of successful theories regarding the interpretations of sentences with bare plural subjects. A series of related theories by Greg Carlson, Angelika Kratzer, Molly Diesing and Ted Fernald are reviewed and evaluated. New modifications to Diesing's theory are presented and are shown to improve the handling of time semantics, allow a simple account of Spanish copular variation and make the mechanics of the model more explicit and simple. Under this new theory, stage-level predicates are functions of an entity and a spatiotemporal variable whereas individual-level predicates are only functions of an entity. Inflection is given logical form to complete the mechanics of this new theory. Finally, the determination of whether a predicate is an stage-level or individual-level cannot be done mathematically; rather, the type of a predicate is determined pragmatically.
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