How many people does わたしが世界で一番愛してる人 refer to?


In the sentence わたしが世界で一番愛してる人に。is there a nuance that indicates how many
people it refers to? (one or several people).




[道理百遍義理一遍](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/users/4216)'s comments above are
quite right, and the answer below is likely to be merely a restatement of
them.

When I look at the phrase

> わたしが世界で一番愛してる人

it is actually ambiguous whether the "人" here is singular or plural, but
without context, it's much more likely to be "the person" because of the
superlative (and probably the nature of love). It can also be understood as
"the people I love the most" naturally with proper context. For example, I
have found a blog post where the writer's parents are described this way.

With the context given in the comment,

> わたしが世界で一番愛してる人に。 …わたしを世界で二番目に愛してくれてる人に

there is no ambiguity I can come up with; it's singular.

  * It is clear from the structure that the two "人" here refer to the same object.
  * Thus the entire structure becomes "To [the one / the people] 1. whom I love the most and 2. whom love[s] me the second most dearly". There's sadly someone else who the "人" loves the most. This is apparently about personal relations and therefore is singular. 

* * *

(I had some free time to spend and below is what it brought me; not a serious
answer)

Given some extreme situations, the sentence above could be interpreted as
plural. Let's pretend you are an ancient spirit, worshiped and beloved by the
local people. You love them back and give them your favour. At one time
however, the people start to believe in something different (imagine
Christianity or science or whatever) and now you are now second-most beloved
thing for them. They still worship you but it's more like a tradition than a
living faith. Now you can use that expression to refer to the local people.




[道理百遍義理一遍](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/users/4216)'s comments above are
quite right, and the answer below is likely to be merely a restatement of
them.

When I look at the phrase

> わたしが世界で一番愛してる人

it is actually ambiguous whether the "人" here is singular or plural, but
without context, it's much more likely to be "the person" because of the
superlative (and probably the nature of love). It can also be understood as
"the people I love the most" naturally with proper context. For example, I
have found a blog post where the writer's parents are described this way.

With the context given in the comment,

> わたしが世界で一番愛してる人に。 …わたしを世界で二番目に愛してくれてる人に

there is no ambiguity I can come up with; it's singular.

  * It is clear from the structure that the two "人" here refer to the same object.
  * Thus the entire structure becomes "To [the one / the people] 1. whom I love the most and 2. whom love[s] me the second most dearly". There's sadly someone else who the "人" loves the most. This is apparently about personal relations and therefore is singular. 

* * *

(I had some free time to spend and below is what it brought me; not a serious
answer)

Given some extreme situations, the sentence above could be interpreted as
plural. Let's pretend you are an ancient spirit, worshiped and beloved by the
local people. You love them back and give them your favour. At one time
however, the people start to believe in something different (imagine
Christianity or science or whatever) and now you are now second-most beloved
thing for them. They still worship you but it's more like a tradition than a
living faith. Now you can use that expression to refer to the local people.

