I argue that an account of both inclusive plurals and the crosslinguistic typology of grammatical number requires postulating a [−atomic] feature (or something very much like it) in the structure of exclusive-plural DPs. When combined with the only theory we currently have that accounts for the crosslinguistic typology of number ( Harbour 2014 ), theories in which the exclusive-plural DPs of a language with inclusive plurals are [−atomic]-less under- or overgenerate with respect to that typology. These problems disappear as soon as the structure of exclusive plural DPs contains a component that generates exclusive-plural interpretations, either Harbour’s [−atomic] feature (added to a system with a second, [−atomic]-less structure, a proposal compatible with, e.g., Farkas and de Swart 2010 ) or a predicate-level exhaustivity operator (from Mayr 2015 ).
I argue that the debate on the division of labor between grammar and pragmatics, at least as it pertains to pragmatic free enrichment, needs to be better grounded empirically. Often, only a reduced set of facts from English is used to substantiate claims regarding pragmatic free enrichment. But considering a reduced set of facts from a single language can only afford limited (and, sometimes, wrong) results, because we can merely see whatever this one language chooses to express. Two cases studies are presented: adjectival fragments, and implicit indefinite objects. A grammatical analysis is defended for them.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.