D.Nicolas "Mass nouns and non-singular logic" IJN Ven 3 nov 2006, 11-13h

[David NICOLAS]

Program of the Jean Nicod Colloquium / Programme 
du Séminaire Géneral de l’Institut Jean Nicod

Vendredi 3 novembre 2006 de 11h à 13 h

David Nicolas (CNRS - Institut Jean-Nicod)

"Mass nouns, plurals and non-singular logic"

Abstract:
In this paper, I propose to adopt a non-singular 
logic in order to account for the semantics of 
mass nouns, like "water", "gold" and "furniture". 
I first expose the dilemma that has been put 
forward in favor of the use of non-singular 
logics for dealing with plurals (Schein 1993, 
Rayo 2002). I then suggest that this dilemma does 
not apply to mass nouns. However, there subsists 
an important conceptual and ontological 
difference between singularism and 
non-singularism. A singularist treatment of mass 
nouns must postulate the following. Each time a 
mass noun "N" applies both to an entity x and to 
an entity y, there exists another entity z, 
corresponding to x and y considered together, to 
which "N" also applies. No such extra entity is 
required if one uses a non-singular logic. This 
essential difference and the parallelisms between 
plurals and mass nouns justify the adoption of a 
non-singular logic to represent mass nouns.

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Responsable : Isidora Stojanovic (CNRS, IJN)  
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