2. Count/mass distinctions across languages

Doetjes, Jenny

doi:10.1515/9783110589825-002

Cited by 9 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Contrary to the traditional observation in Greenberg () and Sanches and Slobin (), Doetjes () notes that classifiers and plural markers can co‐occur in Yucatec and Hausa. However, she argues that this does not provide counterevidence to the claim of complementarity as stated in Greenberg and Sanches and Slobin; their generalization specifically makes reference to obligatory plural marking, and the plural marking in these languages is optional.…”

Section: Other Approaches To Complementary Distributionmentioning

confidence: 67%

On the complementary distribution of plurals and classifiers in East Asian classifier languages

Kim

Melchin

2018

Language and Linguist. Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is widely recognized that plural morphemes and classifiers are in complementary distribution, being unable to co-occur. Recent literature suggests a syntactic account for complementary distribution: A plural morpheme and a classifier realize the same functional head, and thus, they cannot co-occur. The goal of this article is to examine whether this syntactic approach to the alleged complementary distribution is applicable to certain classifier languages. We review analyses for each of 3 classifier languages, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, where a plural and a classifier co-occur. The reviewed analyses suggest that plural markers in these classifier languages do not realize the same head with classifiers (e.g., a plural instantiates Num/D in Chinese differently from a classifier), which accounts for its co-occurrence with a classifier.For example, Borer (2005) claims that classifiers and plural markers perform the same semantic function, that of individuation (in a non-measure construction, see Footnote 2 and Section 2 for more details); and thus, they realize the same functional head in the nominal structure, that is, they are in syntactic complementary distribution (to be detailed in Section 2). The proposed syntactic complementary distribution captures the well-observed fact that classifiers and plural markers cannot co-occur in some languages. The question that arises with respect to Borer's type of approach is how complementary distribution figures in classifier languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, where both classifiers and plurals are known to be available. For these languages (as will be discussed in Section 3), independently from Borer's claim, plural markers have been proposed to occupy a different position than classifiers in the nominal structure. Classifiers realize a functional head CL projected above an NP. Plural markers occupy a different head than a CL; for example, in Chinese (Li, 1999), the Num(ber) head (in the sense of Ritter 1991Ritter , 1995 has been proposed as the site for the plural marker -men. With respect to the claim that classifiers and plural markers realize the same functional head as in Borer, this type of proposal for the classifier languages seems to indicate that the syntactic complementary distribution of classifiers and plural markers proposed in Borer may not be applicable to these classifier languages.The goal of this article is to review relevant data provided and the main proposals made for each of the classifier languages under consideration and to evaluate whether the wellknown syntactic complementary distribution is applicable to these classifier languages. For reasons of space, the discussion to follow is restricted to the main proposals concerning the position of plural markers in a nominal structure of each of the classifier languages, assuming the syntax and semantics of classifiers to be relatively constant. In the studies to be reviewed, it appears that the syntax of classifiers in non-measure constructions is relatively less debatable than the s...

show abstract

Section: Other Approaches To Complementary Distributionmentioning

confidence: 67%

On the complementary distribution of plurals and classifiers in East Asian classifier languages

Kim

Melchin

2018

Language and Linguist. Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Generally two sorts of classifiers are distinguished: sortal classifiers and mensural classifiers (Lyons 1977, Doetjes 2012. A sortal classifier is a classifier which specifies units in terms of types of entities (sorts), whereas a mensural classifier is a classifier which specifies units in terms of quantities.…”

Section: Numeral Classifiersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See, for example,Pelletier (1979b),Bunt (1985),Link (1983),Doetjes (2012),Gillon (1992),Rothstein (1910Rothstein ( , 2017).2 Exceptions are 'plurale tantum' such as belongings or shavings, which are mass nouns taking the form of plurals.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mass and Count in Linguistics, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science

Moltmann¹

2020

Language Faculty and Beyond

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Under the universalist approach, however, sortal classifiers and plural markers are unified under one grammatical category (e.g., Borer 2005;Borer and Ouwayda 2010;Cowper and Hall 2012;Doetjes 2012;Her 2012a;Mathieu 2012;Nomoto 2013;T'sou 1976). This view is based on the initial observation by Greenberg (1990) and Sanches and Slobin (1973) that languages with obligatory sortal classifiers do not have compulsory plural markers, and vice versa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Qualitatively, we further specify the theoretical definition for plural markers and classifiers. We define plural markers as a morphosyntactic feature (Doetjes 2012;Kibort and Corbett 2008). Specifically, the plural markers in complementary distribution with sortal classifiers should only involve morphosyntactic plural markers that engage in number agreement with another element, e.g., the verb, as a formal requirement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights on the Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin generalization: Quantitative typological data on classifiers and plural markers

Allassonnière-Tang

Her

2019

Folia Linguistica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper offers quantitative typological data to investigate a revised version of the Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin generalization (GSSG), which states that (a) a language is unlikely to have both sortal classifiers and morphosyntactic plural markers, and (b) if a language does have both, then their use is in complementary distribution. Morphosyntactic plurals engage in grammatical agreement outside the noun phrase, while morphosemantic plurals that relate to collective and associative marking do not. A database of 400 phylogenetically and geographically weighted languages was created to test this generalization. The statistical test of conditional inference trees was applied to investigate the effect of areal, phylogenetic, and linguistic factors on the distribution of classifiers and morphosyntactic plural markers. The results show that the presence of classifiers is affected by areal factors as most classifier languages are concentrated in Asia. Yet, the low ratio of languages with both features simultaneously is still statistically significant. Part (a) of the GSSG can thus be seen as a statistical universal. We then look into the few languages that do have both features and tentatively conclude that part (b) also seems to hold but further investigation into some of these languages is needed.

show abstract

2. Count/mass distinctions across languages

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

On the complementary distribution of plurals and classifiers in East Asian classifier languages

On the complementary distribution of plurals and classifiers in East Asian classifier languages

Mass and Count in Linguistics, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science

Insights on the Greenberg-Sanches-Slobin generalization: Quantitative typological data on classifiers and plural markers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About