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In this paper, we consider various conceptions of what matter is, taking into account the particular case of mixtures like lemonade. Portions of matter and mixtures are typically referred to by mass nouns, such 'water', 'gold', and 'lemonade'. So in section 1, we present the two main accounts that have been proposed in order to characterize their semantics. In section 2, we present Barnett's (2004) reasons for arguing that mereological sums are inadequate to capture our intuitions concerning the identity of portions of mixtures over time. In section 3, we discuss how the non-singularist approach can deal with mixtures. We show that it must treat nouns of mixtures as collective, temporary predicates. Then in section 4, we turn to chemistry, the science of matter and its transformations, to examine how it can help us clarify these issues.
