Les pluriels lexicaux dits 'massifs' face au conditionneur universel

« Mass » lexical plurals vis-à-vis the Universal Packager 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').

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