Book contents
- Countability in Natural Language
- Countability in Natural Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Proportional Many/Much and Most
- 2 Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction
- 3 Counting Aggregates, Groups and Kinds: Countability from the Perspective of a Morphologically Complex Language
- 4 Individuating Matter over Time
- 5 Reduplication as Summation
- 6 Iceberg Semantics for Count Nouns and Mass Nouns: How Mass Counts
- 7 Indexical Inference: Counting and Measuring in Context
- 8 Counting and Measuring and Approximation
- 9 The Count/Mass Distinction for Granular Nouns
- Index
- References
4 - Individuating Matter over Time
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2021
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Book contents
- Countability in Natural Language
- Countability in Natural Language
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Proportional Many/Much and Most
- 2 Quantity Systems and the Count/Mass Distinction
- 3 Counting Aggregates, Groups and Kinds: Countability from the Perspective of a Morphologically Complex Language
- 4 Individuating Matter over Time
- 5 Reduplication as Summation
- 6 Iceberg Semantics for Count Nouns and Mass Nouns: How Mass Counts
- 7 Indexical Inference: Counting and Measuring in Context
- 8 Counting and Measuring and Approximation
- 9 The Count/Mass Distinction for Granular Nouns
- Index
- References
Summary
In this chapter, Krifka proposes a mereotopological formal semantic theory, enriched with a temporal dimension (a spatiotemporal haptomereology) that can account for the individuation of objects and (portions of) substances over time in terms of an ontology that underlies our use of natural language in the sense of Bach’s (1981) natural language metaphysics. Krifka’s spatiotemporal haptomereology can model not only how entities in space are connected but also how entities in time are connected. This, in turn, allows for the definition of solids, liquids, gases, grains, and individuals. For example, a solid in an interval t, t’ is an entity whose interior parts touch the same parts between t and t′. With these theoretical developments, Krifka proposes an account of different types of individuation over time. For example, he proposes that material identity over time can be established via matter individuals: individuals that are understood as identifying the same matter over time. The re-identification of matter over time, it is proposed, is based on the mereotopological notion of maximally self-connected entities described by Grimm, and a haptomereological modeling of change over time.
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- Countability in Natural Language , pp. 121 - 144Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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