Call for papers: Empirical, Theoretical and Computational Approaches to Countability in Natural Language

[Jan Strunk]

First Call for Papers

Empirical, Theoretical and Computational Approaches to Countability in 
Natural Language

A conference organized by the Linguistics Department
(Sprachwissenschaftliches Institut) of Ruhr­‐Universität Bochum, Germany.


Ruhr­‐Universität Bochum, Germany
September 22­‐24, 2010


Aims and scope:
The distinction between mass and count nouns has been addressed in
a variety of linguistic (and also extra­‐linguistic) approaches.
Initially, it has been suggested that the distinction is a property
of lexemes, or that it can be derived from properties of the objects
denoted by the respective nouns. This assumption has been severely
challenged by a variety of approaches, leading to the assumption
that countability is a property of constructions and phrases.
Yet, a critical survey of the most advanced work on the count­‐mass
distinction has shown that multiple, partially conflicting views
on this phenomenon are still competing.


As an illustration for unsettled questions, consider the following:

- If the mass­‐count distinction is actually dependent on formal
   syntactic and/or semantic marking, how are nouns to be classified
   that lack such a marking, e.g. nouns in preposition-­noun combinations
   (determinerless PPs)?

- If mass is taken to be a basic property of nouns to which syntactic
   marking must be added to transform the noun into a count noun,
   why do certain languages already require such marking for mass terms
   (e.g. Romance languages)?

- How can the apparent tension between theoretical constructional
   (i.e. token-­based, and hence construction­‐specific) and
   computational (i.e. primarily type­‐based, and hence possibly
   lexical-class-based) classification be resolved?


The goal of this conference is to bring researchers from all areas
of linguistics together to clarify the numerous existing theories
concerning the count­‐mass distinction and also to offer a platform
for new insights and constructive criticism.


We therefore invite original contributions which relate to the following
issues within or around the count­‐mass distinction:

- Cross-­linguistic empirical and/or theoretical analysis
   of the count‐mass distinction
- Empirical and/or theoretical analysis of countability
   in a specific natural language
- Psycholinguistic experiments
- Manual or computer-­aided classification/annotation of countability
- Historical/etymological contributions


Invited speakers:
- Hagit Borer (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)
- N.N.
- Henriette de Swart (OTS, Universiteit Utrecht)


Conference Organizers:
- Tibor Kiss
- Tobias Stadtfeld
- Antje Müller
- Katja Keßelmeier
- Claudia Roch
- Jan Strunk


Electronic submission:
Abstracts no longer than six pages should be sent to
countability2010 at linguistics.rub.de
not later than May 31, 2010.



On behalf of the conference organizers


Jan Strunk
Sprachwissenschaftliches Institut
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
strunk at linguistics.rub.de