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Journal of Semantics 2002 19(1):73-104; doi:10.1093/jos/19.1.73
© 2002 by Oxford University Press
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The Average American has 2.3 Children

Greg Carlson1 and Francis Jeffry Pelletier2

1 Department of Linguistics, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY USA 14627. e-mail: Carlson{at}ling.rochester.edu 2 Department of Philosophy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5. e-mail: jeffp{at}cs.ualberta.ca

Average-NPs, such as the one in the title of this paper, have been claimed to be ‘linguistically identical’ to any other definite-NPs but at the same time to be ‘semantically inconsistent’ with these other definite-NPs. To some this is an ironclad proof of the irrelevance of semantics to linguistics. We argue that both of the initial claims are wrong: average-NPs are not ‘linguistically identical’ to other definite-NPs but instead show a number of interesting divergences, and we provide a plausible semantic account for them that is not ‘semantically inconsistent’ with the account afforded other definite-NPs but in fact blends quite nicely with one standard account of the semantics for NPs.

Received 19.10.2001. Revised 10.04.2002.


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