George Thompson's researches

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Monday, January 28, 2002 1:34 pm -0500 "Dennis R. Preston"
<preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU> wrote:

> But seriously folks, I don't have a "classifier" for "research" as
> readily at hand as I do for the others. Could that have anything to
> with it? I doubt it; I've got handy classifiers for "beer," (cans,
> bottles), but that doesn't stop me from asking for "two beers." But,
> come to think of it, I have handy classifiers for wine too (bottle,
> glass), but I would never say give me "five wines," although I am
> sure waitpersons have no difficulty with this.

I suppose part of the reason that count 'researches' strikes me as odd is
because I have a range of ways of making 'research' countable that are
semantically more transparent--and so 'researches' confuses me as to what's
being counted.

There's

pieces of research  ---  'I've seen a few pieces of research that
contradict that claim'--in this case, research = the output of researching

streams/programs of research -- 'I've got two streams of research going at
the moment: lexical relations and social labeling'.

but if it's the sum of all the little projects I've done, it's my (mass)
research, not my researches.

Lynne



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320