Count Nouns - Mass Nouns, Neat Nouns - Mess Nouns

Abstract

In this paper I propose and formalize a theory of the mass-count distinction in which the denotations of count nouns are built from non-overlapping generators, while the denotations of mass nouns are built from overlapping generators. Counting is counting of generators, and it will follow that counting is only correct on count denotations. I will show that the theory allows two kinds of mass nouns: mess mass nouns with denotations built from overlapping minimal generators, and neat mass nouns with denotations built from overlapping generators, where the overlap is not located in the minimal generators. Prototypical mass nouns like meat and mud are of the first kind. I will argue that mass nouns like furniture and kitchenware are of the second type. I will discuss several phenomena—all involving one way or the other explicitly or implicitly individual classifiers like stuks in Dutch—that show that both distinctions mass/count and mess/neat are linguistically robust. I will show in particular that nouns like kitchenware pattern in various ways like count nouns, and not like mess mass nouns, and that these ways naturally involve the neat structure of their denotation. I will also show that they are real mass nouns: they can involve measures in the way mess mass nouns can and count nouns cannot. I will discuss grinding interpretations of count nouns, here rebaptized fission interpretations, and argue that these interpretations differ in crucial ways from the interpretations of lexical mass nouns. The paper will end with a foundational problem raised by fission interpretations, and in the course of this, atomless interpretation domains will re-enter the scene through the back door.ReferencesBarner, D. & Snedeker, J. 2005. ‘Quantity judgements and individuation: evidence that mass nouns count’. Cognition 97: 41–66.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2004.06.009PMid:16139586Bunt, H. 1985. Mass Terms and Model Theoretic Semantics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Cheng, L., Doetjes, J. & Sybesma, R. 2008. ‘How universal is the Universal Grinder’. In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2008, p. 50–62.Chierchia, G. 1998. ‘Plurality of mass nouns and the notion of semantic parameter’. In Susan Rothstein (ed.) ‘Events and Grammar’, 52–103. Kluwer, Dordrecht.Chierchia, G. 2010. ‘Mass nouns, vagueness, and semantic variation’. In Synthese 174 (1).Doetjes, J. 1997. Quantifiers and Selection. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leiden.Hoeksema, J. 1983. ‘Plurality and conjunction’. In Alice ter Meulen (ed.) ‘Studies in Modeltheoretic Semantics’, 63–83. Foris, Dordrecht.Krifka, M. 1989. ‘Nominal reference, temporal constitution and quantification in event semantics’. In Johan van Benthem Renate Bartsch & Peter van Emde Boas (eds.) ‘Semantics and Contextual Expression’, 75–115. Foris, Dordrecht.Krifka, M. 2009. ‘Counting configurations’. In Arnt Riester and Torgrim Solstad (eds.) Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 13.Landman, F. 1989. ‘Groups I & II’. Linguistics and Philosophy 12: 559–605, 723–744.http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00627774Landman, F. 1991. Structures for Semantics. Kluwer, Dordrecht.Landman, F. 2000. Events and Plurality. Kluwer, Dordrecht.Lasersohn, P. 1988. A semantics for Groups and Events. Ph.D. thesis, University of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio.Li, X. P. 1983. On the Semantics of Classifiers in Chinese. Ph.D. thesis, University of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio.Link, G. 1983. ‘The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: a lattice-theoretic approach’. In R. Bäuerle, U. Egli & A. von Stechow (eds.) ‘Meaning, Use and the Interpretation of Language’, 303–323. de Gruyter, Berlin.Link, G. 1984. ‘Hydras. On the logic of relative constructions with multiple heads’. In F. Landman & F. Veltman (eds.) ‘Varieties of Formal Semantics’, 245–257. Kluwer, Dordrecht.Lønning, J-T. 1987. ‘Mass terms and quantification’. Linguistics and Philosophy 10: 1–52.Pelletier, F. J. 1975. ‘Non-singular reference. Some preliminaries’. In Philosophia 5. Reprinted in Francis Jeffry Pelletier (ed.), 1979, Mass Terms. Some Philosophical Problems, Kluwer, Dordrecht.Pelletier, F. J. & Schubert, L. 1989/2002. ‘Mass Expressions’. In Dov Gabbay & Franz Guenthner (eds.) ‘The Handbook of Philosophical Logic’, 387–453. Kluwer, Dordrecht.Rothstein, S. 1992. ‘Types of plural individuals’. Journal of Semantics 15: 641–675.Rothstein, S. 2009a. ‘Bare noun semantics’. Talk presented at the workshop on ‘Bare Nouns: Syntactic Projections and their Interpretations’, Paris, November 2009.Rothstein, S. 2009b. ‘Stubborn distributivity, multiparticipant nouns and the count/mass distinction’. To appear in: Proceedings of NELS 39.Rothstein, S. 2010. ‘Counting and the mass-count distinction’. Journal of Semantics 27: 343–397.http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffq007Sybesma, R. 2009. Het Chinees en het Nederlands zijn eigenlijk hetzelfde. Het Spectum, Houten.ter Meulen, A. 1980. Substances, Quantities and Individuals. Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University