Can Mereological Sums Serve As The Semantic Values Of Plurals?

David Nicolas
2007 Zenodo  
Friends of plural logic—like Oliver & Smiley (2001), Rayo (2002), Yi (2005), and McKay (2006)—have argued that a semantics of plurals based on mereological sums would be too weak, and they have adduced several examples in favor of their claim. However, they have not considered various possible counter-arguments. So how convincing are their own arguments? We show that several of them are easily answered, while some others are more problematic. Overall, the case against mereological
more » ... e idea that mereological sums can serve as the semantic values of plurals—turns out to be less strong than what it is usually presented to be.
doi:10.5281/zenodo.32547 fatcat:zarzzqxwfrgqzbmctxmnp5psle