Revue de la Lexicologie 18 (2002)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
In English, some common nouns, like "cat", can be used in the singular and in the plural, while others, like "wate"r, are invariable. Moreover, nouns like "cat" can be employed with numerals like "one" and "two" and determiners like "a", "many" and "few", but neither with "much" nor "little". On the contrary, nouns like "milk" can be used with determiners like "much" and "little", but neither with "a", "one" nor "many". These two types of nouns constitute two morphosyntactic sub-classes of English common nouns; cf. for instance Gillon (1992). They have been respectively called count nouns and mass nouns. In many languages, notably Romance and Germanic languages, one can similarly identify two morphosyntactic subclasses of common nouns, nouns of one class admitting singular and plural number, and nouns of the other being invariable in grammatical number. The question we want to address in this paper is one in lexical semantics: Is there anything characteristic about the meaning of a count noun?
|
Keywords | count noun meaning atomicity reference |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Reprint years | 2004 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
View all 27 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Similar books and articles
Language and Ontology in Early Chinese Thought.Chris Fraser - 2007 - Philosophy East and West 57 (4):420-456.
Variables, Generality and Existence.Henry Laycock - 2006 - In Paulo Valore (ed.), Topics on General and Formal Ontology. Polimetrica. pp. 27.
Stubborn Distributivity, Multiparticipant Nouns and the Count/Mass Distinction.Roger Schwarzschild - unknown
The Semantics of Nouns Derived From Gradable Adjectives.David Nicolas - 2003 - In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 8. pp. 197-207.
Remarks on the Syntax and Semantics of Day Designators.Jeffrey C. King - 2001 - Noûs 35 (s15):291 - 333.
German Noun Plural Reconsidered.Dieter Wunderlich - 1999 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (6):1044-1045.
Mass Nouns, Count Nouns and Non-Count Nouns.Henry Laycock - 2005 - In Alex Barber (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Elsevier.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2009-01-28
Total views
97 ( #120,518 of 2,506,473 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #416,997 of 2,506,473 )
2009-01-28
Total views
97 ( #120,518 of 2,506,473 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
1 ( #416,997 of 2,506,473 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads