23.4353, Calls: Syntax, Morphology, Semantics, Psycholing, Text/Corpus Ling/Croatia

Wed Oct 17 18:33:19 UTC 2012

LINGUIST List: Vol-23-4353. Wed Oct 17 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.4353, Calls: Syntax, Morphology, Semantics, Psycholing, Text/Corpus Ling/Croatia

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Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:32:05
From: Timotheus Vermote [timotheus.vermote at ugent.be]
Subject: Mass-Count and Count-Mass Transfers

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Full Title: Mass-Count and Count-Mass Transfers 

Date: 18-Sep-2013 - 21-Sep-2013
Location: Split, Croatia 
Contact Person: Timotheus Vermote
Meeting Email: timotheus.vermote at ugent.be

Linguistic Field(s): Morphology; Psycholinguistics; Semantics; Syntax; Text/Corpus Linguistics 

Call Deadline: 10-Nov-2012 

Meeting Description:

'The Flexibility of the Mass-Count Distinction: The Lexicon-Grammar Interface, and the Issue of Transfers'

Convenors: Timotheus Vermote & Peter Lauwers (Ghent University)

On the topic of the mass-count distinction, three main issues remain heavily debated to date. First, what underlies the mass-count distinction, what motivates it, what do mass and count nouns denote? (ontology vs. quantification, the problem of collective nouns, etc.) Second, which place in the linguistic system should the mass-count distinction get? (the lexicalist vs. the grammatical view) Third, how can the morphosyntactic flexibility of many nouns in that respect be accounted for? (polysemy, metonymy, transfers, etc.)

Obviously, these three issues are not unrelated, and the way each will be tackled will have implications for the others. This workshop, however, focuses especially on the latter question. Although, intuitively, the mass-count distinction seems a matter of the lexicon (some nouns being mass, others being count), many nouns appear to be morphosyntactically flexible and to accommodate effortlessly both usages.

That variation has been studied from two points of view. On the one hand, it has been described as a matter of 'transfers', best conceptualized as the effects of various imaginary 'machines', such as the 'Universal Grinder' (Pelletier 1975, 1991), the 'Universal Packer' (Bunt 1985, Jackendoff 1991, Pelletier 1991) or the 'Universal Sorter' (Bunt 1985). On the other hand, authors such as Ostler & Atkins (1991), Nunberg & Zaenen (1992), Copestake & Briscoe (1995), Kleiber (1999) and Nicolas (2002) have studied the issue of systematic variation between mass and count inside certain semantic fields (especially that of nouns denoting animals > fur, meat, etc.), which they described in terms of 'lexical implication rules', 'systematic or semi-productive polysemy', 'language-specific pragmatic conventions', 'lexical licenses', etc.

These are many different accounts, each with divergent implications as far as the localization of the mass-count distinction (along the lexicon-grammar axis) is concerned. This workshop wishes to reassess these different views, as well as others, in the light of complementary methodologies such as corpus linguistics, experimental psycholinguistics and comparative studies. Topics include, but are not limited to:

- Different theoretical models for mass-count flexibility, and their morphosyntactic implications
- The role of semantic fields as intermediate levels, halfway between lexical and grammatical semantics
- Empirical studies (corpus research, psycholinguistic experimentation, acquisition) aiming at confirming or invalidating the separation between 'allegedly entrenched vs. creative transfers', and the role of factors such as frequency, and contextual clues (sentential context)
- The link between mass-count flexibility and the availability of specific determiners (e.g., to what extent does the existence of a specialized mass article, such as the partitive in French, facilitate count > mass transfers?)
- From an onomasiological point of view: which are the possible semantic (or semantic-pragmatic) effects of mass-count flexibility in a certain language, and how are they achieved by alternative linguistic means in other languages (affixation, composition, e.g. the diminutive in Dutch as a marker of countability)
- The link between plurality and countability of the NP, and more specifically the case of 'uncountable plurals'
- Etc.

Accordingly, the workshop will host both empirical case studies and theorization attempts. Participants are welcome to express themselves in French or English. 

Call for Papers:

Abstracts should be 300 words. They should be submitted by November 10, 2012, to Timotheus Vermote (timotheus.vermote at ugent.be).

References:

Bunt, H. (1985). Mass terms and Model theoretic semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Copestake,A. & Briscoe,T. 1995. 'Semi-productive polysemy and sense extension.' Journal of Semantics 12: 15-67.

Jackendoff,R. 1991. 'Parts and boundaries.' Cognition 41: 9-45.

Kleiber,G. 1999. Problèmes de sémantique. La polysémie en questions. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion.

Nicolas,D. 2002. La distinction entre noms massifs et noms comptables : aspects linguistiques et conceptuels. Leuven: Peeters.

Nunberg,G. & Zaenen, A. 1992. 'Systematic polysemy in lexicology and lexicography.' EURALEX '92, Proceeding I-II.Tampere 

Ostler,N. & Atkins,B.T.S. 1991. 'Predictable meaning shift: some linguistic properties of lexical implication rules.' In: Pustejovsky,J. and Bergler,S. (eds), Lexical semantics and knowledge representation. Proceedings of the first SIGLEX Workshop. (Berkeley,CA.): Springer-Verlag, 87-100.

Pelletier,F.J. 1975. 'Non-singular reference: Some preliminaries.' Philosophia 5.4: 451-465

Pelletier,F.J. 1991. 'Mass terms.' In: Smith,B. and Burkhardt,J. (eds), Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology. Munich: Philosophia Press, 495-499.

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