Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T01:49:54.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2021

By
Jenny Doetjes
Edited by
Hana Filip
Hana Filip
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Get access

Summary

This chapter analyses the connections between quantity expressions, which, in English, include expressions such as three, several, a few, much, and many, and the mass/count distinction. Based on cross-linguistic evidence from Brazilian Portuguese, English, Mandarin, and Yudja, amongst others, Doetjes argues that quantity expressions can be exhaustively subdivided into two classes: count quantity expressions, which presuppose the availability of units that can be counted, and non-count quantity expressions, which do not presuppose the availability of units that can be counted. Anti-count quantity expressions, which presuppose the absence of units that can be counted, are subsumed under the class of non-count quantity expressions. On the basis of this distinction, Doetjes argues that while we may expect to find languages in which all nouns have a count denotation (Yudja being a good candidate), it is not predicted to be possible for there to be languages in which all nouns have a mass denotation.

Keywords

count and non-count quantity expressionsanti-count quantity expressions Brazilian PortugueseMandarinYudjaEnglish
Type
Chapter
Information
Countability in Natural Language , pp. 52 - 84
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bach, Elke, Jelinek, Eloise, Kratzer, Angelika, and Partee, Barbara (2013). Quantification in Natural Languages, Vol. 54. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Bale, Alan, and Barner, David (2009). The interpretation of functional heads: Using comparatives to explore the mass/count distinction. Journal of Semantics 26.3: 217–252.Google Scholar
Bale, Alan, and Coon, Jessica (2014). Classifiers are for numerals, not for nouns: Consequences for the mass/count distinction. Linguistic Inquiry 45.4: 695–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barner, David, and Snedeker, Jesse (2005). Quantity judgments and individuation: Evidence that mass nouns count. Cognition 97: 41–46.Google Scholar
Beviláqua, Kayron (2014). Nomes nus e nomes plurais: Um experimento sobre a distinção contável-massivo no PB. MA Thesis, Universidade Federal do Paraná.Google Scholar
Beviláqua, Kayron, and de Oliveira, Roberta Pires (2014). Brazilian bare phrases and referentiality: Evidences from an experiment. Revista Letras 90: 253–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borer, Hagit (2005). Structuring Sense Volume i: In Name Only. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brooks, Neon, Pogue, Amanda, and Barner, David (2011). Piecing together numerical language: Children’s use of default units in early counting and quantification. Developmental Science 14: 44–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cabredo Hofherr, Patricia (forthcoming). Nominal number morphology. In Hofherr, Patricia Cabredo and Doetjes, Jenny (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren (1968). A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Chung-Ying (1973). Comments on Moravcsik’s paper. In Hintikka, Jaakko, Moravcsik, Julius, and Suppes, Patrick (eds.), Approaches to Natural Language, pp. 286–288. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Lisa, and Sybesma, Rint (1998). Yi-wan tang, yi-ge tang: Classifiers and massifiers. The Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies 28.3: 385–412.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa, and Sybesma, Rint (1999). Bare and not so bare nouns and the structure of NP. Linguistic Inquiry 30: 509–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Lisa, and Sybesma, Rint (2005). Classifiers in four varieties of Chinese. In Cinque, Guglielmo and Kayne, Richard S. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax, pp. 259–292. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa, Doetjes, Jenny, and Sybesma, Rint (2008). How universal is the universal grinder? In van Koppen, Marjo and Botma, Bert (eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2008, pp. 50–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa, Doetjes, Jenny, Sybesma, Rint, and Zamparelli, Roberto (2012). On the interpretation of number and classifiers. Italian Journal of Linguistics 24: 175–194.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro (1998a). Plurality of mass nouns and the notion of “semantic parameter.” In Rothstein, Susan (ed.), Events and Grammar: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy Vol. 7, pp. 53–103. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro (1998b). Reference to kinds across languages. Natural Language Semantics 6.4: 339–405.Google Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro (2010). Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation. Synthese 174.1: 99–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corbett, Greville (2000). Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cowper, Elizabeth, and Hall, Daniel Currie (2012). Aspects of individuation. In Massam, Diane (ed.), Count and Mass across Languages, pp. 27–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deal, Amy Rose (2017). Countability distinctions and semantic variation. Natural Language Semantics 25: 125–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehaene, Stanislas (1997). The Number Sense. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Denny, J. Peter (1986). The semantic role of noun classifiers. In Craig, Colette (ed.), Noun Classes and Categorization, pp. 279–308. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Di Sciullo, Anna-Maria, and Williams, Edwin S. (1987). On the Definition of Word. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (1997). Quantifiers and Selection. On the Distribution of Quantifying Expressions in French, Dutch and English. The Hague: HAG.Google Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (2008). Adjectives and degree modification. In McNally, Louise and Kennedy, Christopher (eds.), Adjectives and Adverbs: Syntax, Semantics and Discourse, pp. 123–155. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (2010). Mismatches in the lexicon. Paper presented at Conference on Empirical, Theoretical and Computational Approaches to Countability in Natural Language, Bochum.Google Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (2012). Count/mass distinctions across languages. In Maienborn, Claudia, von Heusinger, Klaus, and Portner, Paul (eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, pp. 2559–2580. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (2017a). Measure words and classifiers. Revista Letras 96: 291–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (2017b). The count/mass distinction in grammar and cognition. Annual Review of Linguistics 3: 199–217.Google Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny (2017c). Noun phrase. In Sybesma, Rint (ed.), Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew (2005). Coding of nominal plurality. In Haspelmath, Martin, Dryer, Matthew S., Gil, David, and Comrie, Bernard (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures, pp. 138–141. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Farkas, Donka, and de Swart, Henriëtte (2010). The semantics and pragmatics of plurals. Semantics and Pragmatics 3: 1–54.Google Scholar
Feigenson, Lisa, Dehaene, Stanislas, and Spelke, Elizabeth (2004). Core systems of number. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8: 307–314.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferdinand, Astrid (1996). The Development of Functional Categories. PhD Thesis, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Ferreira, Marcelo (forthcoming). Bare nominals in Brazilian Portuguese. In Cabredo Hofherr, Patricia and Doetjes, Jenny (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Franz, Donald G., and Russell, Norma J. (1995). Blackfoot Dictionary of Stems, Roots and Affixes, 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Gathercole, Virginia (1985). “He has too much hard questions.” The acquisition of the linguistic mass–count distinction in much and many. Journal of Child Language 12: 395–415.Google Scholar
Gillon, Brendan S. (2012). Mass terms. Philosophy Compass 7: 712–730.Google Scholar
Grimm, Scott (2012). Number and Individuation. PhD Dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Grimm, Scott (2014). Individuating the abstract. Paper presented at Sinn und Bedeutung 18, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria, Spain.Google Scholar
Grimm, Scott (2018). Grammatical number and the scale of individuation. Language 94.3: 527–574.Google Scholar
Grinevald, Colette (2005). Classifiers. In Lehmann, C., Booij, G., and Mugdan, J. (eds.), Morphology: A Handbook on Inflection and Word Formation, pp. 1016–1031. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hamon, Roparz (1984). Grammaire bretonne. Saint Malo: Al liamm.Google Scholar
Harrison, Sheldon, and Albert, Salich (1976). Mokilese Reference Grammar. Honolulu, HI: University Press of Hawaii.Google Scholar
Heim, Irene (1991). Artikel und Definitheit. In von Stechow, Arnim and Wunderlich, Dieter (eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research, pp. 487–535. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hsieh, Miao-Ling (2008). The Internal Structure of Noun Phrases in Chinese. Books Series in Chinese Linguistics, No. 2. Taipei: Crane Publishing.Google Scholar
Iljic, Robert (1994). Quantification in Mandarin Chinese: Two markers of plurality. Linguistics 32: 91–116.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred (1992). Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In Sag, Ivan and Szabolcsi, Anna (eds.), Lexical Matters, pp. 29–53. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Lehrer, Adrienne (1986). English classifier constructions. Lingua 68: 109–148.Google Scholar
Li, Peggy, Dunham, Yarrow, and Carey, Susan (2009). Of substance: The nature of language effects on entity construal. Cognitive Psychology 58: 487–524.Google Scholar
Li, XuPing (2013). Numeral Classifiers in Chinese. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lima, Suzi (2010). About the count-mass distinction in Yudja: A description. In Rogers, Beth and Szakay, Anita (eds.), Papers for WSCLA 15: The Fifteenth Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas, pp. 157–164. Ottawa: University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
Lima, Suzi (2012). Numerals and the universal packager in Yudja (Tupi). Paper presented at SULA 6, Manchester, UK.Google Scholar
Lima, Suzi (2014). The Grammar of Individuation and Counting. PhD Thesis, University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar
Link, Godehard (1983). The logical analysis of plurals and mass terms: A lattice-theoretical approach. In Baüerle, Rainer, Schwarze, Christoph, and von Stechow, Arnim (eds.), Meaning, Use, and Interpretation of Language, pp. 302–323. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Lourenco, Stella F., and Longo, Matthew R. (2011). Origins and development of generalized magnitude representation. In Dehaene, Stanislas and Brannon, Elizabeth M. (eds.), Space, Time, and Number in the Brain: Searching for the Foundations of Mathematical Thought, pp. 225–244. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Mathieu, Éric (2012). On the mass/count distinction in Ojibwe. In Massam, Diane (ed.), Count and Mass across Languages, pp. 172–198. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolas, David (2004). Is there anything characteristic about the meaning of a count noun? Revue de la lexicologie 18–19.Google Scholar
Ojeda, Almerindo (1993). Linguistic Individuals. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
Pelletier, Francis J., and Schubert, Lenhart (1989). Mass expressions. In Gabbay, D. and Guenthner, F. (eds.), Handbook of Philosophical Logic. Volume iv: Topics in the Philosophy of Language, pp. 327–408. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Pelletier, Francis J. (2012). Lexical nouns are both +mass and +count, but they are neither +mass nor +count. In Massam, Diane (ed.), Count and Mass across Languages, pp. 9–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pica, Pierre, Lemer, Cathy, Izard, Véronique, and Dehaene, Stanislas (2004). Exact and approximate arithmetic in an Amazonian indigene group. Science 306: 499–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven (1995). The Language Instinct: The New Science of Language and Mind. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Pires de Oliveira, Roberta, and Rothstein, Susan (2011). Bare singular noun phrases are mass in Brazilian Portuguese. Lingua 121: 2153–2175.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan (2009). Towards a grammar of counting and measuring. Paper presented at Workshop on Nominal and Verbal Plurality, Paris, France.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan (2010a). Individuating and measure readings of classifier constructions: Evidence from Modern Hebrew. Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 1: 106–145.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan (2010b). The semantics of count nouns. In Aloni, Maria and Schulz, Katrin (eds.), Amsterdam Colloquium 2009, pp. 395–404. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan (2011). Numbers: counting, measuring and classifying. Paper presented at Sinn und Bedeutung 16, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan (2017). Semantics for Counting and Measuring: Key Topics in Semantics and Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rullmann, Hotze, and You, Aili (2006). General number and the semantics and pragmatics of indefinite bare nouns in Mandarin Chinese. In von Heusinger, K. and Turner, K. (eds.), Where Semantics Meets Pragmatics, pp. 175–196. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Sauerland, Uli (2003). A new semantics for number. In Young, R. and Zhou, Y. (eds.), Proceedings of SALT xiii, pp. 258–275. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de (1916). Cours de linguistique générale. Edited by Bally, C. and Sechehaye, A., assisted by A. Riedlinger. Lausanne and Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Schvarcz, Brigitta R., and Rothstein, Susan (2017). Hungarian classifier constructions, plurality and the mass–count distinction. In van den Hulst, Harry and Lipták, Anikó (eds.), Approaches to Hungarian: Volume 15: Papers from the 2015 Leiden Conference, pp. 103–208. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Shipley, Elizabeth F., and Shepperson, Barbara (1990). Countable entities: Developmental changes. Cognition 34: 109–136.Google Scholar
Smith-Stark, T. Cedric (1974). The plurality split. Paper presented at the Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Spelke, Elizabeth, and Kinzler, Katherine (2007). Core knowledge. Developmental Science 10: 89–96.Google Scholar
Wiese, Heike (2003). Numbers, Language and the Human Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wiggins, David (1980). Sameness and Substance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wilhelm, Andrea (2008). Bare nouns and number in Denë Suliné. Natural Language Semantics 16: 39–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiltschko, Martina (2008). The syntax of non-inflectional plural marking. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 26: 639–694.Google Scholar
Wiltschko, Martina (2012). Decomposing the mass/count distinction: Evidence from languages that lack it. In Massam, Diane (ed.), Count and Mass across Languages, pp. 46–170. Oxford: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Niina Ning (2012). Numeral classifier structures in Mandarin Chinese. Ms., National Chung Cheng University.Google Scholar
Zhang, Niina Ning (2013). Classifier Structures in Mandarin Chinese. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Zucchi, Sandro, and White, Michael (2001). Twigs, sequences and the temporal constitution of predicates. Linguistics and Philosophy 24.2: 223–270.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×