The electrophysiological basis of mass and count nouns processing

Yagoubi, Radouane El; Mondini, Sara; Bisiacchi, Patrizia; Chiarelli, Valentina; Angrilli, Alessandro; Semenza, Carlo

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2006.06.108

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Mass nouns yielded significantly delayed responses compared with (singular) count nouns and again more diffuse electrophysiological activity across both hemispheres. Interestingly, in this paradigm singular nouns elicited a stronger early negative component (N150) than count nouns in left anterior brain regions, that is, the opposite as has been reported for lexical decision tasks (Mondini et al, 2008;El Yagoubi et al, 2006).…”

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 67%

“…On the one hand, El Yagoubi et al (2006) reported longer RTs for mass than for singular nouns when participants had to confirm grammaticality of given sentences. On the other hand, no processing disadvantage in lexical decision was observed for mass nouns compared with singular nouns if a priming sentence fragment was initially presented (Mondini et al, 2009).…”

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Moreover, electrophysiological correlates of early automatic lexical classification of written words (i.e., the socalled N150 component) revealed significant differences between these types of words such that in the left anterior hemisphere, mass nouns elicited a stronger negativity than singular nouns while the opposite pattern was observed in the left posterior quadrant (Mondini et al, 2008;El Yagoubi et al, 2006). Generally, processing of singular nouns elicited networks more confined to the left hemisphere, whereas mass nouns activated a network more widely distributed both within the left hemisphere and across hemispheres (Mondini et al, 2008;El Yagoubi et al, 2006).…”

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of studies failed to demonstrate behavioral differences between these noun types in lexical decision tasks (Mondini et al, 2008;El Yagoubi et al, 2006;Bisiacchi, Mondini, Angrilli, Marinelli, & Semenza, 2005), whereas others reported longer RTs for mass nouns compared with singular nouns (Mondini et al, 2009;Gillon et al, 1999). Moreover, electrophysiological correlates of early automatic lexical classification of written words (i.e., the socalled N150 component) revealed significant differences between these types of words such that in the left anterior hemisphere, mass nouns elicited a stronger negativity than singular nouns while the opposite pattern was observed in the left posterior quadrant (Mondini et al, 2008;El Yagoubi et al, 2006). Generally, processing of singular nouns elicited networks more confined to the left hemisphere, whereas mass nouns activated a network more widely distributed both within the left hemisphere and across hemispheres (Mondini et al, 2008;El Yagoubi et al, 2006).…”

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Where the Mass Counts: Common Cortical Activation for Different Kinds of Nonsingularity

Domahs

Nagels

Domahs

et al. 2012

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Typically, plural nouns are morphosyntactically marked for the number feature, whereas mass nouns are morphosyntactically singular. However, both plural count nouns and mass nouns can be semantically interpreted as nonsingular. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that their commonality in semantic interpretation may lead to common cortical activation for these different kinds of nonsingularity. To this end, we examined brain activation patterns related to three types of nouns while participants were listening to a narrative. Processing of plural compared with singular nouns was related to increased activation in the left angular gyrus. Processing of mass nouns compared with singular count nouns was related to increased activity bilaterally in the superior temporal cortex and also in the left angular gyrus. No significant activation was observed in the direct comparison between plural and mass nouns. We conclude that the left angular gyrus, also known to be relevant for numerical cognition, is involved in the semantic interpretation of different kinds of nonsingularity.

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Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 67%

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mass and Count Nounsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Where the Mass Counts: Common Cortical Activation for Different Kinds of Nonsingularity

Domahs

Nagels

Domahs

et al. 2012

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…Eye-tracking data collected on adult speakers showed a disadvantage for count nouns appearing in mass morphosyntactic context, but not in the converse case (Frisson & Frazier, 2005). Adults show longer response times (RTs) in mass than count nouns (Gillon, Kehayia, & Taler, 1999;Mondini, Kehaya, Gillon, Arcara, & Jarema, 2009) and display latency differences in the event-related potential (ERP) components associated with the two types of noun in lexical decision (El Yagoubi et al, 2006;Mondini et al, 2008) and judgment tasks (Steinhauer, Pancheva, Newman, Gennari, & Ullman, 2001). Furthermore, mass nouns require more processing in the frontal lobe (associated with greater cognitive effort) than count nouns (Semenza, El Yagoubi, Mondini, Chiarelli, & Venneri, 2008, p. 6).…”

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confidence: 99%

Mass is more: The conceiving of (un)countability and its encoding into language in 5-year-old-children

et al. 2016

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Is the mass-count distinction merely a linguistic issue, or is it coded in representations other than language? We hypothesized that a difference between mass and count properties should be observed even in absence of linguistic distinctions driven by the morphosyntactic context. We tested 5-6-year-old children's ability to judge sentences with mass nouns (sand), count nouns (ring), and neutral nouns (i.e., those that appear in mass and count contexts with similar frequency; cake). Children refused neutral nouns embedded in uncountable morphosyntactic contexts, showing a preference for a count interpretation. This suggests that linguistic features alone are not sufficient to define the mass-count distinction. Additional analyses showed that children's performance with mass-but not count-morphosyntax correlated with their performance in tasks concerning logical and conservation operations. Altogether, these results suggest that the processing of mass features is not more demanding than count features from a linguistic point of view; rather, mass features entail additional abstraction abilities.Keywords Count/mass distinction . Language acquisition . Morphological number . Conservation operations . CountabilityTraditional grammar descriptions (after Cheng, 1973) trace a division between mass and count nouns. Specifically, mass nouns refer to substances (e.g., sand), a n d c o u n t n o u n s r e f e r t o o b j ec t s ( e . g . , r i n g ) . Morphosyntactic properties are crucial to distinguish between these two categories of nouns: Mass nouns do not take the plural (e.g., sands) and in the singular form cannot be modified by some determiners (e.g., a sand, each sand). Count nouns do have a plural form (e.g., rings) and in the singular form can be modified by those determiners (e.g., a ring, each ring).Even though the properties that distinguish mass from count nouns have been debated for a long time, both by philosophers (e.g., Pelletier, 1975Pelletier, , 2012Quine, 1960) and linguists (e.g., Allan, 1980;Bale & Barner, 2009;Gillon, 1992;Jackendoff, 1991), influential linguistic approaches (e.g., Borer, 2005;Chierchia, 1998Chierchia, , 2010De Belder, 2011) agree that m ass nouns (or mass morphosyntax) are formally simpler than count nouns (or count morphosyntax). The argument is that the computation of these latter requires more operations at the morphosyntactic level or at the semantic level. In fact, mass nouns can appear only in the singular (e.g., sand) while count nouns display a full inflection for number morphology (e.g., ring vs. rings). Even in the philosophical perspective advanced by Quine (1960), the mass interpretation would be the basic one from which the count interpretation derives.However, as already observed in many theoretical works (e.g., Allan, 1980;Pelletier, 2012;Rothstein, 2010), the simplicity of mass nouns as compared to count nouns in linguistics does not seem as straightforward in terms of cognition. The assumption that mass nouns (or mass morphosyntax) are formally simpler t...

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How ‘some garlic’ becomes ‘a garlic’ or ‘some onion’: Mass and count processing in aphasia

et al. 2015

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The electrophysiological basis of mass and count nouns processing

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

Where the Mass Counts: Common Cortical Activation for Different Kinds of Nonsingularity

Where the Mass Counts: Common Cortical Activation for Different Kinds of Nonsingularity

Mass is more: The conceiving of (un)countability and its encoding into language in 5-year-old-children

How ‘some garlic’ becomes ‘a garlic’ or ‘some onion’: Mass and count processing in aphasia

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