The illusion of kind predication

Abstract

Predicates such as are extinct or are widespread have long been assumed to apply only to kinds. I present evidence that the predicates typically described as kind-level are numerous-type collective predicates, based on their interaction with all and their failure to exhibit homogeneity effects. This undermines the principal semantic motivation for analysing their bare plural arguments as kind-denoting. Instead, I argue that their arguments are type ???? expressions and that plural kind predication is just plural predication. I give a compositional semantics for bare plurals and explain differences between bare and definite plurals in terms of the situation argument that can restrict their domain.