scholarly journals Noun Countability; Count Nouns and Non-count Nouns, What are the Syntactic Differences Between them?

Author(s):  
Carrie Gillon ◽  
Nicole Rosen

This chapter investigates the mass/count distinction in Michif. In many languages, mass and count nouns are distinguished via the (in)ability to occur with plural marking, the (in)ability to occur with numerals without a measure phrase, and the (in)ability to occur with certain quantifiers (Jespersen 1909; Chierchia 1998). However, these diagnostics do not apply to all languages. For example, in Inuttut (Labrador Inuktitut), none of those diagnostics distinguishes between mass and count nouns, but there are other diagnostics that do (Gillon 2012). This chapter shows that Michif displays a split: in one part of the grammar, the three diagnostics distinguish between mass and count nouns, and in another part, the diagnostics do not. This shows that Michif disambiguates between French-derived vocabulary and Algonquian-derived vocabulary, which complicates the notion that the Michif DP is French (Bakker 1997).


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Sea Hee Choi ◽  
Tania Ionin

Abstract This paper examines whether second language (L2)-English learners whose native languages (L1; Korean and Mandarin) lack obligatory plural marking transfer the properties of plural marking from their L1s, and whether transfer is manifested both offline (in a grammaticality judgment task) and online (in a self-paced reading task). The online task tests the predictions of the morphological congruency hypothesis (Jiang 2007), according to which L2 learners have particular difficulty automatically activating the meaning of L2 morphemes that are incongruent with their L1. Experiment 1 tests L2 learners’ sensitivity to errors of –s oversuppliance with mass nouns, while Experiment 2 tests their sensitivity to errors of –s omission with count nouns. The findings show that (a) L2 learners detect errors with nonatomic mass nouns (sunlights) but not atomic ones (furnitures), both offline and online; and (b) L1-Korean L2-English learners are more successful than L1-Mandarin L2-English learners in detecting missing –s with definite plurals (these boat), while the two groups behave similarly with indefinite plurals (many boat). Given that definite plurals require plural marking in Korean but not in Mandarin, the second finding is consistent with L1-transfer. Overall, the findings show that learners are able to overcome morphological incongruency and acquire novel uses of L2 morphemes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
TORODD KINN

The article proposes a novel analysis of NPN constructions, exemplified by English expressions like back to back and year after year. An NPN is typically composed of two identical bare singular count nouns with a preposition between them. Previous research tends to treat NPNs as highly idiosyncratic. While acknowledging some idiosyncrasies, the present contribution shows that NPNs exhibit a considerable degree of regularity and compositionality. A widespread view that bare singulars normally do not function as arguments is shown to rest on weak foundations. As a consequence, the present approach is able to show that NPNs are, at the core, NPs with PP modifiers. Nominal NPNs have this basic structure, while adverbial NPNs involve an extra layer of semantics and are exocentric constructions. A distinction between nominal types and instances is employed to account for the semantics of bare singulars. NPNs exhibit two kinds of emergent meanings, leading to chain NPNs and twin NPNs. The different semantic structures of these NPN subtypes explain why some NPNs can have nominal in addition to adverbial functions. The data comes mostly from Norwegian. Details differ between languages, but central parts of the analyses can be assumed to hold for other languages as well.


1969 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Madison S. Beeler
Keyword(s):  

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise F. Spiteri

This article examines the linguistic structure of folksonomy tags collected over a thirty-day period from the daily tag logs of Del.icio.us, Furl, and Technorati. The tags were evaluated against the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) guidelines for the construction of controlled vocabularies. The results indicate that the tags correspond closely to the NISO guidelines pertaining to types of concepts expressed, the predominance of single terms and nouns, and the use of recognized spelling. Problem areas pertain to the inconsistent use of count nouns and the incidence of ambiguous tags in the form of homographs, abbreviations, and acronyms. With the addition of guidelines to the construction of unambiguous tags and links to useful external reference sources, folksonomies could serve as a powerful, flexible tool for increasing the user-friendliness and interactivity of public library catalogs, and also may be useful for encouraging other activities, such as informal online communities of readers and user-driven readers’ advisory services.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily N. Line ◽  
Samantha Roberts ◽  
Zachary Horne

The American Psychiatric Association recommends that practitioners should discuss mental illnesses using person-first, or comparatively state-based language, rather than trait-based language. The aim of this initiative is both to avoid treating the symptoms of an illness as a defining characteristic of the people who experience these symptoms and to reduce the stigmatization of mental illness. However, some of the implications of these initiatives have not been tested. Here, we investigate one of these implications - people's memory for changes in syntactic constructions in descriptions of mental illness. In two experiments, we found that people fail to remember subtle syntactic changes which shift descriptions from trait to state-based constructions. Instead, participants falsely remembered a protagonist as having a mental illness even when they were only described as experiencing symptoms of this illness. We found this was the case with both proximal (Experiment 1) and more remote semantic cues (Experiment 2).


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Barner ◽  
Jesses Snedeker

How does mass–count syntax affect word meaning? Many theorists haveproposed that count nouns denote individuals, whereas mass nouns do not(Bloom, 1999; Gordon, 1985; Link, 1983), a proposal that is supported byprototypical examples of each (table, water). However, studies of quantityjudgments in 4-year-olds and adults demonstrate that some mass nouns(furniture) do denote individuals (Barner & Snedeker, 2005). This isproblematic for bootstrapping theories that posit one-to-onesyntax-semantics mappings (individual ↔ count; nonindividual ↔ mass; Bloom,1999), unless mass nouns that denote individuals are late-learnedexceptions to mappings. This article investigates this possibility in3-year-olds and adults using 2 methods: word extension and quantityjudgment. Both methods indicate that novel mass nouns can denoteindividuals in both age groups, and thus fail to support simplifiedsyntax-semantics mappings. Also, differences between word extension andquantity judgment raise the possibility that the tasks measure differentunderlying knowledge.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-24
Author(s):  
Ljubica Vlahović ◽  
Snežana Gudurić

In French and Serbian comparative constructions of equality and inequality, negative words are distributed according to their forms, meanings and functions.French negative words - ne most frequently complemented by a particle pas or some other negative word, a double particle ni…ni, as well as negative ne and a double particle ni…ni in Serbian appear in the main clause (but not in the dependent clause) of comparative constructions of equality and inequality. In comparative constructions of inequality with a positive main clause, French expletive ne appears in the dependent clause with the verb, while its equivalent in Serbian nego or no occurs as a connector at the beginning of the dependent clause.Negative words in the main clause of comparative constructions of equality make the French antecedents flexible: the reduced form si alternates with aussi, as well as reduced tant with autant, and Serbian ones stable: reduced tako (from isto tako) and reduced toliko (from isto toliko) are mandatory.The autonomous word isto (easily detachable) serves to enhance the meaning of equality.The French comparative constructions of inequality with a negative main clause may have a dependent clause without or with an expletive ne, while the equivalent Serbian constructions always have a dependent clause with nego or no containing an expletive ne.There is a semantic and a functional equivalence between the French and Serbian constructions, with some syntactic differences due to the systems of two languages.


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