Collectivizers in Italian (and beyond). The interplay between collectivizing and evaluating morphology (and the Div paradox)

In this work, we show that collectivizers are in a sort of complementary distribution with singulatives, and that the same grammatical devices employed to convey a singulative meaning, namely evaluative morphology and gender shift, are in fact used also for collectivization purposes. On the basis of these empirical observations, it is tempting to assume that they share the same morphosyntactic workspace (Chomsky et al. 2018), weakening the Div hypothesis of Borer (2005). Based on morphosyntactic evidence, we argue that the very concept of a divider in the grammar of natural languages is far from being a realistic tool. This conclusion is supported by the observation that a full array of different class(ifying) specifications, including the whole set of the evaluative spectrum (diminutives, augmentatives, pejoratives, etc.) enter the syntactic computation to restrict the semantic shape, as well as the argumental variable of the root. In the case of collectivizers, they introduce an aggregate‐like reading not only applying to individual roots but also to mass roots or adjectival and verbal roots, suggesting that a richer and subtler set of interpretive properties comes into play.