Abstract:Some predicates are distributive (true of each member of a plural subject: if two people smile, they each do). Others are nondistributive (if two people meet, they do so jointly rather than individually), or go both ways: if two people open a door, perhaps they each do so (distributive), or perhaps they do so jointly but not individually (nondistributive). This paper takes up the rarely-explored lexical semantics question of which predicates are understood in which way(s) and why, presenting quantitative evide… Show more
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