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<font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=2><b>Program of the Jean Nicod
Colloquium / Programme du Séminaire Géneral de l’Institut Jean
Nicod<br><br>
Vendredi 3 novembre 2006 de 11h à 13 h<br><br>
</b>David Nicolas (CNRS - Institut Jean-Nicod)<br><br>
"Mass nouns, plurals and non-singular logic"<br><br>
Abstract:<br>
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.<br><br>
Institut Jean Nicod - 1, bis avenue de Lowendal 75007 Paris. Métro :
Ecole Militaire ou La Tour-Maubourg.<br>
Tél : 01 53 59 32 81 / Fax : 01 53 59 32 99 <br>
<a href="http://www.institutnicod.org/">http://www.institutnicod.org</a>
)<br>
Responsable : Isidora Stojanovic (CNRS, IJN) </font>
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