Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation

Chierchia, Gennaro

doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9686-6

Cited by 275 publications

(214 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Accordingly, in the more recent literature, there are several proposed alternatives to the divisiveness criterion which avoid this particular consequence but nevertheless preserve the idea that there is something special about the parts of mass noun denotations. For instance, working in a theory of vague predicate denotations, Chierchia (2010) proposes that water has no stable minimal parts, i.e. elements that remain atomic across contexts.…”

Section: Sums and Partsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If we wanted to replace divisiveness with Chierchia's (2010) notion of unstable atomicity, Landman's (2011) notion of overlap, or Grimm's (2012) notion of strong connectedness, we could recognize analogous replacement notions, pairing cumulativity with whatever thesis we wished to adopt concerning parts. Henceforth, I will whenever possible use the term homogeneous in a general way, intended to allow alternative possible theses about parts to be used in place of the traditional divisiveness.…”

Section: Sums and Partsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2). 11 Parallel proposals can presumably be made using Chierchia's (2010) unstable atomicity, Landman's (2011) overlapping generators, or Grimm's (2012) strong connectedness as the relevant thesis about parts.…”

Section: Toward Semantic Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Countability distinctions and semantic variation

Deal

2017

Nat Lang Semantics

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To what extent are countability distinctions subject to systematic semantic variation? Could there be a language with no countability distinctions-in particular, one where all nouns are count? I argue that the answer is no: even in a language where all NPs have the core morphosyntactic properties of English count NPs, such as combining with numerals directly and showing singular/plural contrasts, countability distinctions still emerge on close inspection. I divide these distinctions into those related to sums (cumulativity) and those related to parts (divisiveness, atomicity and related notions). In the Sahaptian language Nez Perce, evidence can be found for both types of distinction, in spite of the absence of anything like a traditional mass-count division in noun morphosyntax. I propose an extension of the Nez Perce analysis to Yudja (Tupí), analyzed by Lima (2014) as lacking any countability distinctions. More generally, I suggest that at least one countability distinction may be universal and that languages without any countability distinctions may be unlearnable.

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Section: Sums and Partsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sums and Partsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Countability distinctions and semantic variation

Deal

2017

Nat Lang Semantics

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“…Context sensitivity: vagueness and overlap Chierchia's (2010) main claim is that mass nouns are vague in a way that count nouns are not. Mass nouns are uncountable, because they lack stable atoms.…”

Section: 1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We highlight two key factors that have been proposed to play a role in the mass/count distinction as part of a mereological semantics: (i) vagueness (understood in terms of a kind of context-sensitivity) (Chierchia 2010); (ii) disjointness vs. overlap at a context in a noun's denotation (Rothstein 2010;Landman 2011). …”

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confidence: 99%

Individuation, reliability, and the mass/count distinction

Sutton

Filip

2017

JLM

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Counting in natural language presupposes that we can successfully identify what counts as one, which, as we argue, relies on how and whether one can balance two pressures on learning nominal predicates, which we formalise in probabilistic and information theoretic terms: individuation (establishing a schema for judging what counts as one with respect to a predicate); and reliability (establishing a reliable criterion for applying a predicate). This hypothesis has two main consequences. First, the mass/count distinction in natural language is a complex phenomenon that is partly grounded in a theory of individuation, which we contend must integrate particular qualitative properties of entities, among which a key role is played by those that rely on our spatial perception. Second, it allows us to predict when we can expect the puzzling variation in mass/count lexicalization, cross-and intralinguistically: namely, exactly when the two learning pressures of individuation and reliability conflict.

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Measure Phrases

Scontras¹

2020

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics

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Language provides the means to count, parcel, and reference both concrete and abstract elements of the world that surrounds us. At the core of this process is measurement – the mapping of individuals onto scales. Here we survey the way that languages encode measurement using a specific yet heterogeneous class of constructions: measure phrases. This survey considers what it takes to count as a measure expression, and how the meaning of these expressions compares with other quantizing nouns and classifiers.

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Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation

Cited by 275 publications

References 34 publications

Countability distinctions and semantic variation

Countability distinctions and semantic variation

Individuation, reliability, and the mass/count distinction

Measure Phrases

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