Bare Numeral Constructions and the Discourse Representation of Partitivity

Kamp & Reyle's (1993) proposal to represent split antecedents to a plural pronoun in terms of sum- mation and abstraction is critically reviewed in this paper, In point our some weak- nesses of their analysis as well as wrong predictions they make. In propose to treat the partitive reading found in bare numeral constructions by separating the conven-tional DRS construction rules from the cognitively motivated DRS-operations at a different level. A preference rule is also proposed that would constrain the sortal structure of discourse referents when such operations as summation and abstraction are enforced at the DRS's of relevant levels. Evidence for the separate treatment of linguistically motivated processes apart from cognitively motivated ones comes from both English and Korean constructions involving definite plural pronouns and numeral classifiers.