Concept Typicality and the Interpretation of Plural Predicate Conjunction

This chapter studies the interpretations of plural sentences with conjoined predicates, e.g. The boys are sitting and cooking and The boys are waving and smiling. Such sentences are sometimes interpreted intersectively, sometimes non-intersectively (or ‘split’), and sometimes both interpretations appear to be allowed. This is surprising, since the logical structure of these sentences is identical, i.e. they differ only with respect to content words (e.g. sitting, cooking vs. waving, smiling). I propose that the logical interpretation of these sentences is systematically affected by lexical information tied to the complex predicate in the sentences, specifically their so-called typicality effects. With a set of experiments, I show that (a) the acceptability of a sentence in a non-intersective situation can be expressed in terms of a continuum and (b) each acceptability proportion is predicted by the typicality of the two conjoined predicates applying simultaneously. This way, I specify at least one of the relevant pragmatic considerations that determine the interpretation of a plural sentence with conjunctive predicates. More generally, these results stress the importance of conceptual structure of predicates in semantic theories of language.