Les pluriels lexicaux dits « massifs » face au conditionneur universel

Abstract

This paper deals with lexical plurals in French. It shows that lexical plurals are still within the scope of derivations that restore a [+ count] status, as witnessed by the presence of strongly individuating indefinite determiners. These shifts appear to line up with two canonical mass>count transfers, viz. the universal sorter and the universal packager. The latter comes in various subtypes according to the nature of the input-noun: packaging in three-dimensional space, temporal bounding, spatio-temporal bounding of complex activities and objects and, finally, “qualitative” packaging. In some cases, even a novel singular count form shows up (Une rillette, s’il vous plaît!), restoring the canonical grammatical opposition. These operations beyond “plural mass” confirm both the structural relevance of mass plurals as a lexical class and their genuine ‘mass’ status (mass being conceived both as ‘dense’ and ‘compact’).

Pluralia tantum nouns and the theory of features: a typology of nouns with non-canonical number properties

“…The issues are complex; seeLauwers (2016) for discussion of French, including nouns like rillettes 'rillettes'.45 Though it is also found in Finnish (Nenonen and Niemi 2010:107n7); for example, häät 'wedding' is a plurale tantum noun, but the derivative hääpäivä 'wedding day' includes the apparent singular form hää (Silva Nurmio, personal communication 8 April 2018).…”