[Lingtyp] count nouns & mass nouns

Fri Feb 14 03:55:03 UTC 2020

Dear Paolo,

Yes; this is just like saying `Many waters cannot quench love'.  As i point out to the students in my course on English syntax, in English the distinction between `count nouns' and `mass nouns' is fundamental -- but what are normally mass nouns can be used/treated as count nouns in exceptional cases.

Best,
Steven

-----Original message-----
From:paolo Ramat<paolo.ramat at unipv.it>
To:fcosw5<fcosw5 at scu.edu.tw>
Cc:Lingtyp<lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2020 19:29:43
Subject: Re: count nouns & mass nouns

Dear Steven,with reference to your criteria (1) and (3): consider a sentence like many /*much philosophies have as their starting point different Christian theologies and Wittgenstein had different philosophies at different moments of his life.

Regards,
P.Rt.
prof. dr. Paolo Ramat Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
Accademia dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
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Il giorno gio 13 feb 2020 alle ore 04:58 fcosw5 <fcosw5 at scu.edu.tw> ha scritto:

Maybe it's just that I'm more of a syntactician/grammarian than a semanticist, but for me the main distinction between `count nouns' and 'mass nouns' in English is that mass nouns (1) rarely occur in the plural (2) can dispense with articles in general (3) take 'much' rather than 'many' as a modifier.  By these criteria, I have no trouble regarding 'philosophy', 'theology', or 'democracy' as 'mass nouns'.

And, of course, they can be modified: 'Platonic philosophy', 'Aristotelian philosophy', 'Christian theology', 'Jewish theology', 'Taoist theology', 'Jeffersonian democracy', 'Churchillian democracy'.

Best,
Steven Schaufele

-----Original message-----
From:paolo Ramat<paolo.ramat at unipv.it>
To:Haspelmath, Martin<haspelmath at shh.mpg.de>
Cc:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2020 18:16:09
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] The (ab)use of the term "theory" in (generative)linguistics

Hi everyone, Martin H. has written that  <<there is confusion also about ]...] the relation between "typology" and "theory">>. I fully agree. But Martin says further that <<the term "theory" can be used as a count noun , or as a mass noun ("linguistic theory", "grammatical theory">>. This sounds rather strange: I had always thought that mass nouns are nouns such as 'sugar', 'blood', 'sand' etc. Can we consider abstract nouns like 'philosophy','theology' or even 'democracy'  as mass nouns? Let alone by adding an adjective as in "linguistic/grammatic theory". This is not the habitual use of the term and sounds confusing. 
Paolo

prof. dr. Paolo Ramat  Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
Accademia dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
##39 0382 27027
347 044 98 44

Il giorno mar 11 feb 2020 alle ore 10:47 Haspelmath, Martin <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de> ha scritto:

I would talk about "confusion", not about "abuse", because there are many different kinds of linguistic theories. Moreover, the term "theory" can be used as a count noun (as in the last sentence), or as a mass noun ("linguistic theory", "grammatical theory"). Linguists rarely reflect on kinds of theories, or on kinds of senses of the word "theory", and the papers that Hartmut mentioned have not become well-known. So there is a lot of confusion.

In my 2010 paper on "Framework-free grammatical theory" (https://zenodo.org/record/814947), I distinguished four senses of "theory".

But there is confusion also about the relation between "typology" and "theory": Quite a few people have contrasted them as if they were different ways of doing linguistics, or different parts of research, e.g.

Hengeveld, Kees. 1992. Non-verbal predication: Theory, typology, diachrony. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Polinsky, Maria & Robert Kluender. 2007. Linguistic typology and theory construction: Common challenges ahead. Linguistic Typology 11(1). 273–283.
Van Langendonck, Willy. 2008. Theory and typology of proper names. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

But on the other hand, it is clear that "atheoretical typology" is impossible, so this usage is confusing. See this recent blogpost, which proposes an alternative: https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1915

Martin

On 11.02.20 10:18, Hartmut Haberland wrote:

Jün-Tin Wang 1973. ”On the representation of generative grammars as first-order theories.” In: Radu J. Bogdan and Ilkka Niinilouto eds. Logic, Language and Probability. Dordrecht: Reidel, 302-316
Hans-Heinrich Lieb 1974. "Grammars as theories: The case for axiomatic grammar (Part I)". Theoretical Linguistics 1: 39-115.
Hans-Heinrich Lieb 1976. "Grammars as theories: The case for axiomatic grammar (Part II)". Theoretical Linguistics 3: 1-98.

Fra: Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk> 
Sendt: 11. februar 2020 09:33
Til: TALLMAN Adam <Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr>
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] The (ab)use of the term "theory" in (generative) linguistics

Hans-Heinrich Lieb has written extensively about this in the 70s, also Jün-tin Wang. Hartmut 

Den 11. feb. 2020 kl. 07.12 skrev TALLMAN Adam <Adam.TALLMAN at cnrs.fr>:

Hello all, 

Does anyone have any sources that discuss the abuse of the term "theory" in generative linguistics (or in linguistics generally)? I figure that a paper like this must exist given the deeply insightful comments that I have received by some reviewers.

best,

Adam

Adam James Ross Tallman (PhD, UT Austin)

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-- Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human HistoryKahlaische Strasse 10 D-07745 Jena &Leipzig UniversityInstitut fuer Anglistik IPF 141199D-04081 Leipzig 

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