Pluralities, Collectives, and Composites

Forests, cars and orchestras are very different ontological entities, andyet very similar in some aspects. The relationships they have with the elements theyare composed of is often assumed to be reducible to standard ontological relations,like parthood and constitution, but how this could be done is still debated. Thispaper sheds light on the issue starting from a linguistic and philosophical analysisaimed at understanding notions like plurality, collective and composite, and proposinga formal approach to characterise them. We conclude the presentation with adiscussion and analysis of social groups within this framework.