The aim of the project is to explore the role of structured part-whole configurations in natural language. Specifically, it will attempt to provide novel evidence for a mereotopological approach to nominal and verbal semantics, i.e., a theory of wholes that captures not only parthood but also topological relations holding between parts. The main goal is to extend mereotopology beyond the domain of concrete individuals to abstract ontological domains comprising eventualities and roles. Two empirical areas will be investigated from a cross-linguistic perspective: i) the morphology and semantics of role nouns including social collectives such as `clergy’ and ii) the syntax and semantics of multiplicatives in the context of event-internal/external quantification, e.g., ` Kim knocked on the door three times’ can either mean that on one occasion Kim knocked on the door three times (event-internal), or that they knocked on the door on three separate occasions (event-external). While i) shed light on the distinction between individuals and roles, i.e., abstract social capacities distinct from individuals that bear them, ii) shows the relevance of higher order units in the verbal domain.

Extending mereotopology will allow for distinguishing between various types of structured part-whole configurations that will help in capturing the meaning of the expressions in question. For instance, the distinction between singular integrated entities and clusters thereof will enable us to capture event-internal interpretations in terms of quantification over simplex temporally integrated events and event-external interpretations in terms of quantification over eventive clusters, i.e., spatiotemporally structured pluralities of simplex events. On the other hand, `clergy’ can be viewed as a property of social clusters. The expected outcome of the project is to determine structured part-whole configurations across ontological domains and to identify restrictions on when they can arise.