Les pluriels lexicaux dits 'massifs' face au conditionneur universel

This paper deals with lexical plurals in French. It shows that lexical plurals are still within the scope of derivations that restore a [+ count] status, as witnessed by the presence of strongly individuating indefinite determiners. These shifts appear to line up with two canonical mass>count transfers, viz. the universal sorter and the universal packager. The latter comes in various subtypes according to the nature of the input-noun: packaging in three-dimensional space, temporal bounding, spatio-temporal bounding of complex activities and objects and, finally, “qualitative” packaging. In some cases, even a novel singular count form shows up (Une rillette, s’il vous plaît!), restoring the canonical grammatical opposition. These operations beyond “plural mass” confirm both the structural relevance of mass plurals as a lexical class and their genuine ‘mass’ status (mass being conceived both as ‘dense’ and ‘compact’)