Full Idea
By certain standardizations of phrasing the contexts that call for plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether.
Gist of Idea
Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether
Source
Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §19)
Book Reference
Quine,Willard: 'Word and Object' [MIT 1969], p.90
A Reaction
Laycock, who quotes this, calls it 'unduly optimistic', but I presume that it was the standard view of plural reference until Boolos raised the subject.