Number terms in discourse can receive not only exact interpretations, but also intervalar readings (‘at most n’, ‘at least n’, ‘approximately n’). In some linguistic contexts, number terms can be ambiguous among several readings, but in others ambiguity is impossible and only an exact interpretation is allowed. We therefore need to establish the semantic content of a number term that serves as input for the pragmatic processes that lead to its final interpretation, and to understand the variables that affect it. This problem has led to at least three general positions on the meaning of number terms in the system of a natural language. Here I propose that number terms, just like the rest of conceptual lexical items, are subject to meaning modulation processes on each occasion of use. Rather than being encoders of exact cardinalities, number terms seem to be lexical pointers to a conceptual region that encompasses the concepts that can be communicated through their use. However, the possibility of lexical adjustment can be blocked by procedural semantic features in the construction where the number term appears. This explains that in some contexts only an exact interpretation for a number term is available. Here I detail the workings of this proposal in the following contexts: definite structures, contexts where a number term has a predicative function, contexts where it appears as a discourse comment, and contexts where a number term appears in a quantified referring expression used to refer collectively
Keywords:
number term, lexical semantics, pragmatics, conceptual meaning, procedural meaning
Curcó, C. (2016). Concept and procedure in the interpretation of number terms. Lenguas Modernas, (45), Pág. 9 – 38. Retrieved from https://revistas.uchile.cl/index.php/LM/article/view/42716
