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New perspectives on the count–mass distinction: Understudied languages and psycholinguistics
Author(s) -
Lima Suzi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/lnc3.12303
Subject(s) - focus (optics) , linguistics , psycholinguistics , semantics (computer science) , noun , computer science , field (mathematics) , sociology , psychology , philosophy , mathematics , cognition , programming language , physics , neuroscience , pure mathematics , optics
Much work has explored the semantics of count and mass nouns from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. In this paper, we explore some of the recent advances in this field, drawing particularly from descriptions of understudied languages and experimental research. We will focus on two dimensions of the count/mass debate. First, we will explore the debate about what can be counted grammatically, that is, how we define atoms and what role extra‐linguistic factors may play in this process. Second, we give an overview of the current debate about counting and measuring, which experimental research suggests are distinct operations, as some scholars in the formal semantics literature have predicted.