Parts and Wholes in Semantics

Friederike Moltmann

First systematic semantic investigation of expressions relating to part-whole structure in natural language
Offers an original, philosophically and linguistically motivated alternative to standard extensional mereological theories of plurals and mass nouns, based on the notion of an integrated whole
Develops a theory of situated part structures as a new application of situation semantics
By a leading researcher working in the interface between philosophy and natural language semantics

Parts and Wholes in Semantics

Friederike Moltmann

Description

This book develops a unified account of expressions involving the notions of "part" and "whole " in which principles of the individuation of part structures play a central role. Moltmann presents a range of new empirical generalizations with data from English and a variety of other languages involving plurals, mass nouns, adnominal and adverbial modifiers such as as a whole, together, and alone, nominal and adverbial quanitfiers ranging over parts, and expressions of completion such as completely and partly. She develops a new theory of part structures which differs from traditional mereological theories in that the notion of an integrated whole plays a central role and in that the part structure of an entity is allowed to vary across different situations, perspectives, and dimensions.

Parts and Wholes in Semantics

Friederike Moltmann

I. Introduction
II. The Formal Semantic Framework and the Treatment of Distributivity
III. Semantic Selection, Part Structures, and Perspectives
IV. Part Structures and Quantification
V. Metrical and Other Lexical Specifications of Part Structures
VI. Dimensions of Parts and Wholes and the Part Structure of Events
VII. The Mass-Count Distinction for Verbs and Adverbial Quantification over Events
VIII. Concluding Remark about Part Structures and Natural Language

Parts and Wholes in Semantics

Friederike Moltmann

Author Information

Friederike Moltmann is senior researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. She had previously taught both linguistics and philosophy at various universities in the US and the UK. She has published numerous articles in both linguistic and philosophical journals.

Parts and Wholes in Semantics

Friederike Moltmann

Reviews and Awards

"M's book contains a more varied range of linguistic data than most other formal semantic works about plurality and it offers an original way of approaching these data."--Notes on Linguistics

"This book is a very interesting one. It presents new and promising views of the count/plural/mass distinction, supporting them through extensive discussions of many phenomena. The basic idea - in singling out special entities which play a major role in accounting for count- and plural-like behaviour, according to contextually controllable integrity conditions - is challenging and with far-reaching consequences. Moreover, the breadth of coverage, and the attempts at discussing crosslinguistic and comparative evidence are worth particular notice." --Fabio Pianesi, Linguistics and Philosophy