[Lingtyp] CfP: Mass nouns in a typological perspective
Michael Daniel
misha.daniel at gmail.com
Mon Oct 16 16:30:26 UTC 2023
Dear colleagues,
Silva Nurmio, Yvonne Treis and myself are planning to submit a workshop
proposal on morphosyntactic typology of mass nouns to the SLE meeting in
Helsinki (August 21-24, 2024). In order to submit the initial workshop
proposal to the organizers, we need a list of potential contributions. We
are inviting those interested in participating to send us short abstracts
by November 13. See the workshop description and details of the CfP below.
If the workshop proposal is accepted by the SLE, all the preliminary
workshop participants will have to submit their full abstracts to EasyChair
by 15 January 2024 for the evaluation.
Michael Daniel,
also on behalf of Silva Nurmio and Yvonne Treis
**************************************************************************************************************************************************
Workshop proposal for SLE in Helsinki (21-24 August 2024)
Mass nouns in a typological perspective
Convenors:
Michael Daniel, Université Lyon 2 / CNRS
Silva Nurmio, University of Helsinki
Yvonne Treis, CNRS
Keywords: mass nouns; unitization; agreement of mass nouns; number marking
on mass nouns
This workshop aims at making a further step towards bringing the study of
mass nouns more firmly into a typological perspective. Mass nouns have
traditionally been treated in formal semantics (from McCawley 1975 to Filip
2021), in cognitive linguistics (e.g. Middleton et al. 2004) and
acquisition studies (e.g. Soja et al. 1991), all focused on data from
English in a clearly disproportionate way. More descriptive studies, too,
are mostly dedicated to English or other SAE languages (Kleiber 2014). Mass
nouns have not been in focus in linguistic typology, as shown, for example,
by a very limited coverage of the topic in the otherwise comprehensive
survey of number in Corbett 2000, and by grammars often omitting to give
details of the morphosyntactic peculiarities of mass nouns. The number of
research papers focussing on mass nouns in individual non-SAE languages
also seems to be limited (we quote Mufwene 1980 on Lingala, Kibrik 1992 on
East Caucasian, Wilhelm 2008 on Dëne Sųłiné, Davis 2014 on St’át’imets as
several examples). In cross-linguistic surveys of number and numerosity, at
best small fractions of the discussion are dedicated to mass nouns (again
Corbett 2000, Storch and Dimmendaal 2014, Cabredo Hofherr and Doetjes 2021,
Acquaviva and Daniel 2022 - and individual chapters therein; but see Keenan
and Paperno 2012 where countability is more in focus). Recently, there have
been typological collections dedicated to mass nouns (Massam 2012; Lima &
Rothstein 2020). They strongly emphasise the need to expand language
coverage. Lima and Rothstein quote, as a showcase of why it is important to
include understudied languages, the impact of Wilhelm’s (2008) analysis of
Dëne Sųłiné on the development of formal semantic models of countability.
Still, the best studied parameters of variation remain mapped from those
studied in SAE, including availability of plural marking to names of
substances, semantic effects of pluralization of such nouns, their
occurrence with numerals and their quantifier selectivity - together adding
up to the familiar morphosyntactic notion of (un)countability. In other
words, not only coverage in terms of areas and families, but also and
especially in terms of grammatical phenomena accounted for, is still far
from comprehensive: even when the former is extended, the latter often
remains the same. Lima & Rothstein (2020) expand the study of countability
to a totally new sample of languages, but at the same time explicitly
indicate that their questionnaire is designed so as to test generalisations
suggested in the previous, mostly formal, line of study. This indicates
another dimension for collecting more empirical data: more detail on
cross-linguistic diversity of morphosyntactic behaviour of mass nouns.
Mass nouns can be defined on morphosyntactic (~uncountability, as opposed
to countable nouns, cf. Bale 2021) or on conceptual (~designation of
substances, as opposed to names of individuated entities, cf. Ghomeshi and
Massam 2012) grounds. Hypothetically, a language may lack mass nouns in the
first sense (also because countability diagnostics may diverge); but it
cannot lack them in the second sense. A methodological trap of the
definition based on morphosyntax is that it necessarily prioritises some
morphosyntactic properties (traditional diagnostics of countability) over
others. Words expressing concepts like ‘sand’ or ‘water’ may not fall under
this morphosyntactic definition of mass nouns while still showing other
unexpected morphosyntactic properties. As we are interested in the latter,
we define mass nouns primarily on conceptual grounds, as a class of nouns
that include designations for substances as a core, as well as other nouns
that morphosyntactically align with them. That leaves our eyes wide open
for morphosyntactic features that do not easily follow from the existing
theories of countability or, even if they do, are difficult to predict
apriori, such as the unitization effect of possessive markers on mass nouns
in Negidal (Aralova & Pakendorf 2023).
Some phenomena are relatively well-studied, such as recategorization
effects under pluralization (Corbett’s 2000 sortal and abundance plurals),
partly because of their relevance to the formal semantic take on mass
nouns. But some other, “unexpected” morphosyntactic observations from
individual languages raise the question how frequent they are
typologically. We know that, in terms of number marking or agreement, mass
nouns align with singular nouns in some languages, but with plural nouns in
others (e.g. Creissels 2022 on Tswana, Foley 2022 on Lower Sepik). For
Welsh, Nurmio (2019) shows that some mass nouns are lexical hybrids
(Corbett 2000, 2006), with a tendency to control different agreement
depending on the domain. In Dargwa, in the singular some mass nouns control
plural agreement and some control singular agreement; and all mass nouns
also can be pluralized and then control plural agreement (Sumbatova 2018;
cf. also Saeed 1999 for Somali). We are also interested in more typological
evidence for the observation (discussed sporadically from Wierzbicka 1988
to Grimm 2018) that the manner with which speakers interact with an entity
(e.g. as a mass, or as one by one) may influence its morphosyntactic
properties.
Unitization of mass nouns remains relatively understudied. This may be
achieved by phrases with minimal unit nouns (English grain of sand, German
Sandkorn) (Goddard 2010), measure nouns (glass of water), singulative
markers (Welsh gwenyn-en ‘a bee’) (Acquaviva 2016, Haspelmath & Karjus
2017, Dali & Mathieu 2021, Nurmio 2023) classifiers and also by
recategorization. The interface between mass and so-called collective nouns
(a descriptive term used in e.g. Celtic linguistics for nouns denoting a
plurality of entities in their most basic form) is also typologically
interesting. Jaradat & Jarrah (2022) argue that these two types overlap to
a different extent in different varieties of Arabic; and Nurmio (2019)
observes both overlap and differences in Welsh. Collective, like mass, is a
term which vexes typologists (Gil 1996, Corbett 2000, De Vries 2021), while
it continues to be used freely in grammars and descriptive work, often
(just like mass nouns) without elaboration as to the morphosyntactic
properties of such nouns. In fact collective and mass are often mentioned
together without an explicit disentanglement of the two.
We welcome abstract submissions especially on lesser-studied languages. We
are looking to address the following research questions, with a focus on
the morphosyntax of mass nouns and their constructional and derivational
properties:
-
Unitization: How do languages denote the minimal units of mass nouns (grain
of sand type)? Are there any special morphosyntactic properties of
packaging / measuring units in combination with mass nouns (glass of
water, eine Flasche Wein type)?
-
Number alignment: What is the default number form of mass nouns -
singular or plural? What kind of agreement is controlled by mass nouns?
What are other morphosyntactic properties that distinguish them from object
nouns?
-
Further interactions: Any peculiar, cross-linguistically unexpected
interactions with grammatical categories, e.g. plural or dual, classifiers,
possessive marking or gender (such as regular shifts in meaning of mass
nouns in flexible gender systems)?
-
Lexical splits: If mass nouns are split into two or more classes
according to their morphosyntactic properties, some aligned with plurals
and some with singulars, what underlies such splits? Are there nouns that
may behave as regular nouns or mass nouns depending on the context, and
what influences this choice? If mass nouns split into subclasses according
to how their units are denoted, what underlies such splits?
-
Other nouns aligned with mass nouns: What other classes of meanings show
morphosyntactic behaviour similar to that of mass nouns (e.g. abstract
nouns, nominalizations, ‘collectives’, other)?
Call for papers
For the workshop proposal, we are asking for abstracts of up to 300 words
(excluding references). Please email these (in PDF and Word format) to
silva.nurmio at helsinki.fi by 13 November 2023. If the workshop proposal is
accepted by the SLE, all the preliminary workshop participants must submit
their full abstracts to EasyChair by 15 January 2024. Do not hesitate to
contact us if you have any questions!
References
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