Some elements in German and English, e.g. every DPs, give rise to cumulativity asymmetries: They allow for cumulative readings only if they occur in the scope of another semantically plural expression. We present a surface-compositional and event-less analysis of this pattern, expanding Schmitt's (2017) 'plural projection' framework. In this system, any constituent containing a semantically plural subexpression denotes a set of (possibly higher-type) pluralities. Cumulativity is built into the rules implementing this 'projection' of semantic plurality.

The massive infiltration of lymphocytes into the skin is a hallmark of numerous human skin disorders. By co-culturing murine keratinocytes with splenic T cells we demonstrate here that T cells affect and control the synthesis and secretion of chemokines by keratinocytes. While pre-activated CD8 + T cells induce the synthesis of CXCL9 and CXCL10 in keratinocytes and keep in check the synthesis of CXCL1, CXCL5, and CCL20, keratinocytes dampen the synthesis of CCL3 and CCL4 in pre-activated CD8 + T cells. One key molecule is IFN-γ that is synthesized by CD8 + T cells under the control of NFATc1 and NFATc2. CD8 + T cells deficient for both NFAT factors are unable to induce CXCL9 and CXCL10 expression. In addition, CD8 + T cells induced numerous type I IFN-inducible “defense genes” in keratinocytes encoding the PD1 and CD40 ligands, TNF-α and caspase-1. The enhanced expression of type I IFN-inducible genes resembles the gene expression pattern at the dermal/epidermal interface in lichen planus, an inflammatory T lymphocyte-driven skin disease, in which we detected the expression of CXCL10 in keratinocytes in close vicinity to the infiltration front of T cells. These data reflect the multifaceted interplay of lymphocytes with keratinocytes at the molecular level.

This paper proposes an extension of the class of plural expressions, a generalized analysis of the denotations of such expressions and a novel account of how they semantically combine with other elements in the sentence. The point of departure is the observation that definite plural DPs and and-coordinations with coordinates of several semantic categories share certain features -in particular cumulativity -in the context of other plural expressions. Existing analyses of conjunction fail to derive these parallels and I propose that and-coordinations should be analyzed as denoting pluralities (of whatever kind of semantic object their conjuncts denote). This, in turn, raises the question of how pluralities combine with other material in the sentence. I show that a simple expansion of the standard analysis thereof, which puts the workload onto the predicate, is insufficient. I propose an alternative which is based on the idea that all semantic domains contain pluralities and involves plural projection. In this system, the truth-conditions of sentences containing plurality-denoting expressions are not due to the semantic expansion of the predicate (as in existing analyses), but the result of a step-by-step process: Once a plurality enters the derivation, the node immediately dominating it will also denote a plurality, namely of the values obtained by a particular combination of the plurality and the denotation of its sister.

This paper investigates cumulative readings of sentences in which some, but not all of the plural expressions have a de dicto reading, i.e. sentences where the lower plural is interpreted in the scope of an attitude verb like believe. I argue that such cases represent a problem for existing accounts of cumulativity, because the required cumulative relation cannot be formed. I then motivate and propose an alternative analysis where all plural expressions are interpreted in situ: I expand the ‘plural projection’ framework put forth by Haslinger & Schmitt (2018, 2019), Schmitt (2019), where embedded pluralities ‘project’ to the denotations of higher nodes in the sense that the latter reflect the part-structure of the former and where cumulativity is derived via a compositional rule in a step-by-step fashion. I show that if the denotations of the plurals with the de dicto construal are analyzed as pluralities of individual concepts, which project in the afore-mentioned sense to pluralities of propositions, the data can be explained straightforwardly. This proposal differs from treatments in terms of collective belief that don’t appeal to pluralities of propositions ( Pasternak 2018a, b), in that it (i) arguably generalizes to a larger number of examples and (ii) links grammatical plurality in the embedded clause to the availability of cumulative readings.

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