Accounting for counting: A uni?ed semantics for measure terms and classi?ers  

Oleh:

Scontras, Gregory

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: Proceedings of the 23rd Semantics and Linguistic Theory Conference, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz, May 3 - 5, 2013, page 549–569.
Topik: numerals; number marking; amount terms; classi?ers.
Fulltext: 3684-7458-1-PB.pdf (156.67KB)

Isi artikel

This paper develops and extends the semantic account of morphological number marking in the presence of numerals from Scontras 2013. The account handles variation in patterns of number marking along two dimensions: crosslinguistically, between languages that either necessitate or prohibit singular morphology in the presence of numerals greater than ‘one’; and within one and the same language: English. The proposed semantics accounts for both sorts of variation by assuming ?exibility in the selection of the measure relevant to the one-ness presupposition of the morphological singular form. The system also provides an explanation for the Slobin-Greenberg-Sanches Generalization, which states that no classi?er language has obligatory number marking: by aligning the semantics of counting in both number marking and classi?er languages, and by assuming that nouns in classi?er languages denote kinds, the semantic contribution of number marking is necessarily redundant in classi?er languages. A system of obligatory number marking only surfaces in languages where it delivers otherwise unrecoverable information about the number of intended referents.

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