A unified account of distributivity, for-adverbias, and pseudopartitives
Abstract
This paper presents a diagnostic for identifying distributive constructions and shows that it applies to pseudopartitives and for-adverbials. On this basis, a unified account is proposed for the parallels between the constructions involved. This account explains why for-adverbials reject telic predicates (*run to the store for five hours), why pseudopartitives reject count nouns (*five pounds of book), and why both reject certain measure functions like temperature and speed (*30°C of water, *drive for 5 mph). These restrictions all follow from a general constraint on distributive constructions. Related concepts such as the D operator (Link, 1987), the subinterval property (Bennett and Partee, 1972), and divisive reference (Cheng, 1973) can be understood as formalizing special cases of this constraint.Downloads
How to Cite
Champollion, L. (2019). A unified account of distributivity, for-adverbias, and pseudopartitives. Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung, 14, 84–100. Retrieved from https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/461
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