Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”

Chierchia, Gennaro

doi:10.1007/978-94-011-3969-4_4

Cited by 452 publications

(341 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…To spell this out any further would mean to spell out the grammar of reciprocals, which we cannot do within the limits of the present work. I believe that this solution (also due to an idea by Giorgio Magri) constitutes a step forward over the one explored in Chierchia (1998a). 46 See, e.g.…”

Section: Cross Linguistic Variationmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…An adequate measure function for (a) would measure the frequency of occurrence of primes relative to the natural ordering of numbers. 45 I believe that the singleton property hypothesis can also explain the difference between (a) and (b), discussed in Gillon (1992) and Chierchia (1998a): (a) The tables in room a and the tables in room b resemble each other (b)…”

Section: Cross Linguistic Variationmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The reasons for this first choice are that Link (1983) is among the most influential theories and, furthermore, it is representative of a vast class of approaches. The second approach I will briefly discuss is Chierchia (1998a); the reasons for this second choice are more personal. 54 7.1.…”

Section: Comparisons and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation

2009

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Section: Cross Linguistic Variationmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Cross Linguistic Variationmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation

2009

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“…Beyond supporting computations of object tracking and numerical systems, linguists, psychologists, philosophers and mathematicians routinely explain human language, logic, and mathematical knowledge via appeal to set and/or lattice theoretic structures (e.g., Barner & Snedeker, 2005;Chierchia, 1998;Link, 1998;Quine, 1963;Russell & Whitehead, 1927). To determine why only humans exhibit these capacities, it is essential to explore not only linguistic contributions to their emergence, but also to document possible non-linguistic conceptual precursors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for a non-linguistic distinction between singular and plural sets in rhesus monkeys

et al. 2008

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Set representations are explicitly expressed in natural language. For example, many languages distinguish between sets and subsets (all vs. some), as well as between singular and plural sets (a cat vs. some cats). Three experiments explored the hypothesis that these representations are language specific, and thus absent from the conceptual resources of non-linguistic animals. We found that rhesus monkeys spontaneously discriminate sets based on a conceptual singularplural distinction. Under conditions that do not elicit comparisons based on approximate magnitudes or one-to-one correspondence, rhesus monkeys distinguished between singular and plural sets (1 vs. 2 and 1 vs. 5), but not between two plural sets (2 vs. 3, 2 vs. 4, and 2 vs. 5).These results suggest hat set-relational distinctions are not a privileged part of natural language, and may have evolved in non-linguistic species to support domain general quantitative computations.3

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“…Há quem distinga classificadores de sintagmas de medida, argumentando que os primeiros dizem respeito a propriedades inerentes aos objetos referidos, ao passo que os segundos são responsáveis por criar unidades abstratas de contagem, independentemente da existência "ontológica" de tais unidades (cf. Avelar 2005, Chierchia 1998, Lyons 1977. Neste trabalho, não se discutirá essa questão.…”

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A distinção contável-massivo e a expressão de número no sistema nominal

Paraguassu-Martins

Müller

2007

DELTA

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This work investigates the count-mass distinction within natural language nominal systems. In particular, we focus on the count-mass distinction and its relation to number morphology. We claim that there is no necessary typological correlation between the lack of number marking and the nonexistence of a count-mass distinction for common nouns. Joosten's (2002) proposal is presented with the purpose of showing that the count-mass distinction can be treated either as a lexical distinction among the denotations of common nouns, or as a distinction among Noun Phrase constituents. KEY-WORDS: semantics; mass nouns; count nouns; number.RESUMO: Este trabalho investiga a distinção contável-massivo entre os nomes comuns. Em particular, nos debruçamos sobre a distinção contável-massivo e sua relação com a morfologia de número. Defendemos que não existe uma correspondência tipológica necessária entre a ausência de marcação de número e a inexistência de uma distinção entre nomes contáveis e nomes massivos. Além disso, a classificação das abordagens da distinção contável-massivo proposta por Joosten (2002) é apresentada com a finalidade de mostrar que essa distinção pode ser tratada ou como uma distinção lexical entre as denotações dos nomes comuns ou como uma distinção entre tipos de sintagmas nominais.

show abstract

Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”

Cited by 452 publications

References 13 publications

Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation

Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation

Evidence for a non-linguistic distinction between singular and plural sets in rhesus monkeys

A distinção contável-massivo e a expressão de número no sistema nominal

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