Concepts of objects and substances in language

Abstract

People distinguish objects from the substances that constitute them. Many languages also distinguish count nouns and mass nouns. What is the relation between these two distinctions? The connection between them is complicated by the facts that (a) some mass nouns (e.g., toast) seem to name countable objects; (b) some count and mass nouns (e.g., pots and pottery) seem to name the same objects; (c) nouns for seemingly the same things can be count in one language (English: dishes) but mass in another (French: la vaisselle); (d) count nouns can be used to name substances (There is carrot in the soup) and mass nouns to name portions (She drank three whiskeys); and (e) some languages (e.g., Mandarin) appear to have no count nouns, whereas others (e.g., Yudja) appear to have no mass nouns. All these cases counter a simple object-to-count-noun and substance-to-massnoun relation, but they provide opportunities to see whether the grammatical distinction affects the referential one. We examine evidence from such cases and find continuity through development: Infants appear to have the conceptual OBJECT/ SUBSTANCE distinction very early on. Although this distinction may change with development, the acquisition of count/ mass syntax does not appear to be an effective factor for change.

Michael Franklin: “Art as Contemplative Practice: Expressive Pathways to the Self”

“…Attending to the substance, rather than the object, has been identified as a difference based on language and culture (Rips & Hespos, 2019). Traditional Chinese arts value imaginary work and symbolic presentation, rather than reality and accuracy (Wang, 2009).…”

Coordination of Caregiver Naming and Children’s Exploration of Solid Objects and Nonsolid Substances

“…When caregivers name objects dominating the child’s view, the association between object and label is unambiguous ( Gillette et al, 1999 ), and children are more likely to learn the object’s name ( Yu and Smith, 2012 ; Yurovsky et al, 2013 ), potentially because these views provide useful information about object shape—necessary for later recognition ( Biederman, 1995 ) and generalization to other category members ( Landau et al, 1988 ). Children also learn to name and recognize things other than solid objects, including nonsolid substances like applesauce ( Rips and Hespos, 2015 , 2019 ), but it is unknown how caregivers structure linguistic and exploratory experiences to support that learning. Here we use head-worn cameras to compare differences in caregiver-child free-play with novel solid objects and novel nonsolid substances to identify the linguistic, visual, and manual experiences associated with children’s recognition and generalization.…”

Substances as a core domain

“…In the philosophical domain of metaphysics, there are distinctions between entities that come in atomic units (like pretzels) and those that have no clear units (like beer; e.g., Frege, 1980; Koslicki, 1997). In the field of psychology, we look at the origins and development of knowledge about substances and how it compares to knowledge about objects (Hespos & VanMarle, 2012; Rips & Hespos, 2015, 2019). For example, unlike objects, liquids deform to fit a container and a solid object can pass through them.…”