[SynSem] Workshop Mass-count

Résumé Luciana Sanchez-Mendes (U. Federal Fluminense, Brésil)

Nominal and verbal plurality in underrepresented languages spoken in Brazil

The aim of this talk is discussing the role of nominal and verbal plurality in natural languages focusing on underrepresented languages spoken in Brazil. I am going to present data from two Arawakan languages, Wapishana and Terena, to show that nominal plurality is not a diagnostic to distinguish count from mass nouns in these languages (cf. Vicente et al. 2020 for Wapishana, and Sanchez-Mendes et al. 2020 for Terena). This is accordance with Lima and Rothstein’s (2020) conclusion that number marking and countability are independent.

On the second part of the talk, I will focus on verbal plurality in Karitiana (Tupian language) and Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) in order to show how verbal reduplication is related to event counting in these languages. Libras shows some good illustration for how languages individuate events based on occurrences, locations or participants (Donazzan and Sanchez-Mendes, 2020). Karitiana, in turn, shows a broad use of pluractional affixes, indicating that the eventive domain is countable in this language (cf. Müller and Sanchez-Mendes, 2020).

References DONAZZAN, M.; SANCHEZ-MENDES, L. Decomposing distribution across dimensions: evidence from Libras. DELTA, vol.36, no.1, p. 1-22, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-460×2020360102 MÜLLER, A.; SANCHEZ-MENDES, L. Pluractionality: the phenomenon, the issues and a case study. In: GUTZMANN, D.; MATTHEWSON, L.; MÉIER, C.; RULLMANNM H.; ZIMMERMANN, T. E. (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics. Oxford: Wiley. 2020 LIMA, S.; ROTHSTEIN, S. A typology of the mass/count distinction in Brazil and its relevance for mass/count theories. Linguistic Variation, 20:2. p. 174-218, 2020. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00015.lim VICENTE, H. G.; SANCHEZ-MENDES, L.; PIRES DE OLIVEIRA, R.; LUNGUINHO, M.; LEANDRO, W. M. The nominal system in Wapichana (Aruák): preliminary results. Linguistic Variation, 20:2. p. 397–407, 2020. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00029.gue SANCHEZ-MENDES, L.; QUADROS GOMES, A. P.; JULIO, A. The count-mass distinction in Terena. Linguistic Variation, 20:2. p. 381–396, 2020. DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00028.san

Résumé Jenny Doetjes (Leiden)

Quantity expressions across languages

This talk will center on quantity expressions of the type a lot across languages as compared to other types of quantity expressions. Expressions such as a lot are special in the sense that they are indifferent with respect to the count/mass distinction: they are both compatible with mass nouns and with count nouns rather than being restricted to either of these.

The first part of the talk will contrast expressions such as a lot with mass-only expressions (a bit) and will argue that the latter are a subcase of the former. I will also discuss the special status of small quantities in this respect (a bit, un peu), which I will relate to the special status of small numbers in cognition (Feigenson, Dehaene and Spelke, 2004).

The second part of the talk will concentrate on competing theories of numerals, that is, count-only expressions (Ionin and Matushansky, 2006, Bale, Gagnon and Khanjian, 2011). These theories make contradictory claims about properties of numerals across languages, and I will argue that a comparison with expressions such as a lot sheds light on these controversies.

References Bale, Alan, Michaël Gagnon, and Hrayr Khanjian. 2011. Cross-linguistic representations of numerals and number marking. In Proceedings of SALT 20, eds. Nan Li and David Lutz, 109-127. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America. Feigenson, Lisa, Stanislas Dehaene, and Elizabeth Spelke. 2004. Core systems of number. Trends in cognitive sciences 8:307-314. Ionin, Tania, and Ora Matushansky. 2006. The composition of complex cardinals. Journal of Semantics 23:315-360.

Résumé Anne Zribi-Hertz (travail joint avec Herby Glaude, Loïc Jean-Louis, Moles Paul)
The Mass/Count distinction at the morphology/syntax/lexicon interfaces: some data from two French-based creoles for cross-linguistic comparison

The first part of this talk will focus on Haitian Creole, a language which has neither plural inflection in the noun phrase, nor a grammaticalized system of classifiers, but where the Mass/Count distinction may nevertheless be shown to be operative among lexical nouns. A striking property of Haitian is that it allows counters (e.g. numerals) to combine with Mass nouns without inserting overt unit-denoting lexemes (thus 'two + mud' may be contextually construed as, e.g., 'two splashings of mud'). Another interesting property found in Haitian is the ambivalent behaviour of nouns denoting "grainy" stuff, such as 'rice' or 'equipment', which may denote either stuff (with Mass properties) or units of stuff (with Count properties), unlike so-called "fake mass"  (furniture-type) nouns in English or French which combine Mass (upstairs) and Count (below). A comparative look at Martinican (another noninflectional/nonclassifier French-based creole) also reveals the Mass/Count distinction to be operative, although the grammar differs from that of Haitian in various details. Both Haitian and Martinican grammars appear to lack functional means (such as number neutralisation in English or French) to coerce Count nouns into Mass denotations; on the other hand, they seem to allow Mass nouns to be coerced into Count denotations with a lighter lexical apparatus than needed in French or English.