Mass/Count in Linguistics, Philosophy & Cognitive Science Dec. 20, 2012

1. Numeral Classifiers and the Mass/Count DistinctionByeong-uk YiPhilosophyDepartmentUniversity of Torontob.yi@utoronto.ca Mass/Count in Linguistics, Philosophy & Cognitive Science Dec. 20, 2012

2. Contents • Preliminaries 3 • Is the Mass/count Distinction Universal? 18 • Count Noun Thesis 42 • Paranumeral Account 65 • Further Issues 83 • Summary 104

3. 1. Preliminaries

4. Language & Ontology Mass/Count Nouns Stuff/Individuals Stuff or substance water, milk, beef, rice Individuals of the same kind cows, houses raindrops, rice grains, chairs • Mass nouns • water, milk, beef, rice • furniture, cutlery • satisfaction, patience, success • Count nouns • cow, house • raindrop, rice grain, furn. piece • mistake

5. Stuff/Individuals • Aristotle (384-322 BC) • Matter & form • The bronze: matter/material • The statue: form/shape • Compounds • Concrete • Individuals belonging to a kind

6. Mass/Count • Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) • The Philosophy of Grammar (1924) • Thing words/countables • Mass words/uncountables

7. Digression 1 • Joseph Edkins • Shanghai dialect (1853/1868) • Mandarin (1857/1864) • Yuen-Ren Chao • A Grammar of Spoken Chinese (1968)

8. Diagression 2 • Bloomberg • Language (1933) • English nouns • Determiner criteria • Proper nouns • Common nouns • Bounded nouns • Unbounded nouns • Mass nouns • Abstract nouns

9. Count Nouns (Jespersen) • House • Horse • Day • Mile • Sound • Word • Crime • Plan • mistake

10. Mass Nouns (Jespersen) • The “material” • Silver, quicksilver, water, butter, gas, air • The “immaterial” • Leisure, music, traffic, success, tact, commonplace • ‘nexus-substantives’ • Satisfaction, admiration, refinement (from verbs) • Restlessness, justice, safety, constancy (from adverbs)

11. What distinguishes them? • “There are a great many words which do not call up the idea of some definite things with a certain shape or precise limits. I call these ‘mass-words’.” (198) • Mistake vs. success • Rice

12. Syntactic Criteria (Jespersen) • “while countables are ‘quantified’ by means of such words as one, two, many, few, mass-words are quantified by means of such words as much, little, less.” (198) • The “notion of number” is “logically inapplicable to mass-words” (200) • “In an ideal language constructed on purely logical principles a form which implied neither singular nor plural would be … called for” mass-words (198)

13. Morphosyntactic Criteria (Standard) • Morphology: Singular/plural forms • Count: cow/cows • Mass: water/*waters, milk/*milks • Numeral • Count: three cows • Mass: *three {water(s), milk(s)} • Determiners • Count: {many, few} cows • Mass: {much, little, less} milk

14. Digression : Bare Noun Criterion • Bloomberg (1933, 205) • Determiners • About English nouns • “Bounded nouns in the singular number require a determiner (the house, a house) • “Unbounded nouns require a determiner for the definite category only (the milk : milk)”

15. Mass/Count: Semantics Count Mass Mass Nouns refer to (or are names of) stuffs or substances. ‘water’ (or ‘gold’) is a name of a stuff: water (or gold). • Count nouns denote individuals belonging to a certain kind. • ‘horse’ denotes any (individual) horse. • J. S. Mill • Connotation & denotation • Quine • “individuative” (1969) • “divided reference” (1960)

16. SUMMARY The Usual Mass/Count Distinction

17. Otto Jespersen • The Philosophy of Grammar • Two Features • Primarily Morphosyntactic Distinction • Drawn for English and the like • Additional theories of semantics • Quine (1960) • Others • Chierchia

18. 2. Is the mass/count distinction universal?

19. 2.1. Language diversity

20. Various Views • Some languages don’t have the category of nouns. • Some (or all) languages do not at all draw a distinction between mass and count nouns. • Some languages do not have count nouns (or mass nouns).

22. Classifier Languages • East Asia • Chinese (contemporary dialects) • Japanese • Korean • Thai, Malaysian, etc. • Other Areas • in America • YucatecMaya, etc. • India • Some Indo-European languages, etc. • Others

23. Numeral Classifiers English Mandarin San tou niu 3 CL cow ‘three cows’ San bang (de) rou 3 pound (GEN) meat • Three cows • Three pounds of meat

24. English analogues • Three head of cattle • Three head of {shorthorns, black men} • Three sail of ships • Three stems of roses

25. Asides • Development of Classifiers in Chinese • Classical Chinese & Tagalog • Mandatory & optional classifier systems

26. The Standard Approach The Proposed Alternative The distinction runs deeper than the usual (syntactic) criteria suggest. It applies to a much wider range of languages. CL languages have (robust) count nouns as well as mass nouns. • The mass/count distinction is a parochial feature of English and other similar languages. • The distinction is inapplicable to a wide range of languages. • Classifier languages have only mass nouns.

27. Classifier Languages and the Mass Noun Thesis 2.2. The standard approach

28. Mass Noun Thesis No Count Nouns Mass Nouns Only All common nouns of classifier languages are mass nouns. • Classifier languages have no count nouns.

29. Proponents of the MNT • Keith Allan (1977) • Chad Hanson (1983) • Godehard Link (1991) • Gil (1992) • John A. Lucy (1992) • Manfred Krifka (1995) • Gennaro Chierchia (1998) • Hagit Borer (2005): super-MNT

30. Asides Weak/Syntactic MNT Semi-MNT W. V. Quine (1969) Greenberg (1972) Allan (1977) • CL language nouns  ‘furniture’ • semantically count yet syntactically mass • Proponents • Doetjes (1996) • Cheng & Sybesma (1998; 2005) • Chierchia (1998; 2010)

31. Measure Word Thesis • Classifiers are a kind of measure words. • Classifiers have the same semantic function as the usual measure words (e.g. pound or bang)

32. Numeral Classifiers English Mandarin San tou niu 3 CL cow ‘three cows’ San bang (de) rou 3 pound (GEN) meat • Three cows • Three pounds of meat

33. Measure Word Thesis & MNT Question Answer/Explanation Mass Noun Thesis: unlike ‘cow’, niu is a mass noun. Measure Word Thesis: The classifier tou is a kind of measure word. • Why does the Chinese niu need a classifier to combine with numerals while the English ‘cow’ can directly combine with numerals?

34. Count Noun Approach 2.3. The proposed Alternative

35. The mass/count distinction runs deeper than the usual criteria for the distinction suggests. • It has a substantial cognitive basis. • It applies to classifier languages as well. • Classifier languages have (robust) count nouns as well as mass nouns.

36. Count Noun Thesis • CL languages have (robust) count nouns as well as mass nouns. • CL languages have morphosyntactic devices for distinguishing count nouns from mass nouns. • Syntactically count

37. Paranumeral Thesis • The role of classifiers (in the strict sense) • Classifiers are paranumerals for one. • cousins of numerals for one • Syntactic peers of measure words • Other paranumerals: pair, couple, dozen, score, etc.

38. draw syntactic parallels with measure words (and other paranumerals) • Diverge semantically from measure words • Closer semantically to other paranumerals • Numeratives • Measure words • Other paranumerals • Classifiers

39. CNT & Paranumeral Thesis • Paranumerals match only with count nouns. • three {dozen, dozens of} cows • *three {dozen, dozens of} water(s) • Classifiers match only with count nouns.

40. Summary 2.4. Two approaches

42. Classifier Language Nouns 3. Count noun thesis

43. Count Noun Thesis • Classifier languages also have count nouns as well as mass nouns. • They also have devices for drawing a syntactic distinction between mass and count nouns.

44. Non-mandatory classifier system • Quantifiers specific to numbers • Counterparts of ‘each’ (adverbial use) • Size and shape adjectives

45. 3.1. Non-mandatory classifier systems

46. Some languages have non-mandatory classifier systems. • Some nouns of those CL languages can combine directly with numerals. • Cf. Standard Approach • CL nouns require classifiers.

47. Incomplete classifier system • Vietnamese • Nouns with non-mandatory classifiers • Korean • Malay

48. 3.2. Quantifiers specific to numbers

49. The usual observation • CL languages have no separate words for many & much • Nor for few & little henduo niu a.lot cow ‘many cows (a lot of cows)’ henduo shui ‘much water (a lot of water)’

50. Number-specific • Counterparts of ‘countless’ • Counterparts of ‘a majority (of)’ • Cousins of ‘many’ or ‘few’ • ‘a (large) number of’ • ‘a small number of’