28.2809, Calls: Cog Sci, Gen Ling, Ling Theories, Semantics, Syntax/Germany

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2809. Mon Jun 26 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.2809, Calls: Cog Sci, Gen Ling, Ling Theories, Semantics, Syntax/Germany

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Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2017 11:57:04
From: Johanna Marie Poppek [poppek at linguistics.rub.de]
Subject: The Count-Mass Distinction: A Linguistic Misunderstanding?

 
Full Title: The Count-Mass Distinction: A Linguistic Misunderstanding? 

Date: 07-May-2018 - 09-May-2018
Location: Bochum, Germany 
Contact Person: Johanna Marie Poppek
Meeting Email: poppek at linguistics.rub.de

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; General Linguistics; Linguistic Theories; Semantics; Syntax 

Call Deadline: 04-Oct-2017 

Meeting Description:

Numerous publications bear witness that the count/mass distinction is a
prominent topic in linguistic research. Despite its prominence, the
distinction is elusive, and several key issues have not yet been resolved. 
Many linguists and philosophers have some intuitive idea of a count/mass
distinction, but formal theories eventually have to map their count/mass
distinction to another arbitrary property.  Lost in this process is the
possibility that a binary distinction may be observationally and descriptively
inadequate.

On the semantic side, some authors presuppose that count nouns make atomic
denotations available in language (cf. Link 1983; Chierchia 1998, 2000;
Rothstein 2010). Some of these approaches have been challenged by the
homogeneous structure of count nouns like fence and wall. Additionally there
are the so-called fake mass nouns, object mass nouns or superordinates such as
furniture, silverware or lingerie that provide denotations with an atomic
structure but unlike count nouns they do not make their atoms available in
language. Even though Rothstein (2010) manages to solve these problems by
introducing contextually related atomicity, it remains unclear what the very
concepts count and mass mean apart from making atomic structure available. In
Rothstein’s approach, the burden is shifted to a contextual function, which,
however, seems to be present in every usage of at least some nouns. 
While the aforementioned approaches are based on compositional semantic
analyses, syntactic approaches such as Borer’s 2005 treatment of plurals as
divisions have shed new light on interesting areas, but fail to integrate
compositionality. A peculiar puzzle for the role of number in syntax and
semantics is the fact that ‘mass’ nouns sometimes can denote pluralic
entities, but require singular number agreement in many languages. This
observation has severe implications for approaches as diverse as the
Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2005) and HPSG (Pollard and Sag 1994) – both
approaches assume that number is an interpretable feature. 

The uncertainty around the count/mass distinction is further exacerbated by
the observation that a binary distinction may not be able to account for the
full range of data. Although Allan (1980) has already shown that nouns do not
necessarily occur in all contexts that are usually labeled syntactically as
‘count’ or ‘mass’, the variation among nouns has been ignored with the
exception of so-called dual life nouns, i.e. nouns that are both count and
mass. Recent empirical research by Kiss et al. (2016) has put this issue on
the fore again, by pointing out nouns that may be pluralized, but may not
occur together with an indefinite determiner (e.g. additive, disadvantage,
therapy and punishment), and also nouns that may occur together with an
indefinite determiner, but may not be pluralized (blush, bosom and front). 
Similar problems emerge if immediate grammatical consequences of a count/mass
distinction are considered. Many grammarians assume e.g. that singular count
nouns require the presence of a determiner; but a closer look into the
literature reveals that the relationship between determiners and nouns is
either one of stipulation (if not circularity), or even reversed, so that we
could instead conclude that determiners of a certain type need ‘count’ nouns
as their complement, but not that the nouns actually require the presence of a
determiner (as e.g. in Chierchia 1998). 

Finally, broader typological research has shown that the count/mass
distinction is not a necessary property of the grammar system (cf. Wiltschko
2012, Mathieu 2012, Lima 2014, 2016). 
The purpose of this conference is to critically examine what we know about the
count/mass distinction, and ideally to provide ideas and evidence that puts
research on the count/mass distinction on a new level – even if this means
that the count/mass distinction is replaced by alternative concepts (cf. CfP
for details).


Call for Papers:

Here is a non-exclusive list of topics that should be addressed at this
conference:

–What do we gain if we replace the locus of the count/mass distinction from
the lexical level to the phrasal level or to the sub-lexical level, i.e. by
evoking ''senses''?
–Is it possible to provide a formal account of the count/mass distinction that
does not rely on a functional relation between singularities and pluralities?
–What impact would it have on the count/mass distinction if we examined
grammatical properties of count nouns independently (i.e. considering
occurrences with indefinite determiners and plural inflections as independent
properties shared by a subset of the nouns)? 
–What should be the status of ''readings'' of noun-occurrences that have
played a role in the mass/count literature:  grinding (''armadillo all over
the road''), portioning (''three beers on the table''), sorting (''eight beers
on tap''), evaluating (''too much car for the average driver'')?
–What is the relationship between mass/count as applied to ''concrete nouns''
vs. ''abstract nouns''?

Abstracts and submission:

We invite abstracts with maximal five pages (plus up to a page of references)
describing original work in the area of the count/mass distinction in PDF, no
particular style sheet is required for the submissions. 

The deadline for the abstracts will be 4 October 2017, 23:59 GMT+1.   

Abstracts should be emailed to: tibor[at]linguistics.rub.de 

The notification of acceptance will be issued on 15 November 2017. 

Organizing Committee: Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Tibor Kiss, Halima Husic,
Johanna Marie Poppek

Invited speakers:
Gennaro Chierchia (Harvard University, USA)
Jenny Doetjes (Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands)
Susan Rothstein (Bar Ilan University, Israel)




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