Revealing abstract semantic mechanisms through priming: The distributive/collective contrast

Abstract

Sentences such as The bags are light allow both collective (they are light together) and distributive interpretations (each bag is light). We report the results of two experiments showing that this collective/distributive contrast gives rise to priming effects. These findings suggest that collective and distributive readings involve different interpretative mechanisms, which are at play during real comprehension and can be targeted by priming, independently of the specific verification strategy associated with each interpretation.

Keywords: Ambiguity; Distributivity; Gradable adjectives; Plurals; Priming; Semantics.