Superplurals in English

Abstract

It is now widely believed among philosophers and logicians that ordinary English contains plural terms and plural predicates. For instance, (1a) Alice, Bob and Charlie cooperate should be seen as having the logical form (1b) F(aa) where ‘aa ’ is a plural term, and ‘F ’ a plural predicate. Following George Boolos (1984) and others, many philosophers and logicians also think that plural expressions should be analysed as not introducing any new ontological commitments to some sort of ‘plural entities’, but rather as involving a new form of reference to objects to which we are already committed (for an overview and further details, see Linnebo 2004). For instance, the plural term ‘aa ’ refers to Alice, Bob and Charlie simultaneously, and the plural predicate ‘F ’ is true of some things just in case these things cooperate. A natural question that arises is whether the step from the singular to the plural can be iterated. Are there terms that stand to ordinary plural terms the way ordinary plural terms stand to singular terms? Let’s call such terms superplural. A superplural term would thus, loosely