My dissertation is a large typological examination of heterogeneous plurals, with a focus on associative plurals and similative plurals cross-linguistically. Below is an overview of my findings and supplementary documents containing data and references.
Associative Plurals (APls) are nominal expressions that mean `X and X's associates' (see (1)) and while they are well-attested cross-linguistically, much of the current literature is concerned with APls in a single language/language family.
(1) Eastern Dan (Niger Congo)
dha̋n -dhȕn
mother.in.law -PL
`my mother in law and another (=her daughter)'
The example in (1) represents the way in which the (small) majority of languages with APls generate them: the regular plural marker (here -dhȕn) is also the associative plural marker. My dissertation contains a cross-linguistic study of 109 languages with associative plurals like (1) from 33 families, 4 creoles/pidgins and 2 isolates. The dissertation uncovers a novel typological generalization about languages that use the regular plural marker as the associative plural.
(2) Generalization 1: If a language uses the regular plural as (or as part of) the associative plural, it lacks free-standing definite articles (it either lacks a definite article or has an affixal definite article).
Similative Plurals (APls) are nominal expressions that mean `X and things like X' (see (3)). As above, the regular plural is used as the similative plural in (3).
(3) Shiiba (Japonic)
sumoo -domo
sumo -PL
'Sumo wrestling and suchlike'
My dissertation also uncovers an implicational hierarchy regarding the exponence of associative and similative plurals in languages that have both.
(4) Generalization 2: If a language uses the additive plural as the similative plural, it uses the additive plural as the associative plural too (if it has one)
Below I have uploaded some supplementary documents containing data and references pertaining to the findings in my dissertation.