Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”
Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter”
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质量名词的复数与“语义参数”的概念
DOI：
10.1007/978-94-011-3969-4_4
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发表时间：
1998
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Gennaro Chierchia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Gennaro Chierchia
我想在本文中阐述和捍卫的主要论点是，大量名词来自已经内置复数的词典，这是它们与可数名词不同的（唯一）方式。基于这一假设（让我们将其称为固有复数假设），我将对质量和计数量词的分布提供一种新的解释，其中考虑到这种分布中可能的跨语言变化。我还将以初步且有点推测的方式讨论据说没有可数名词的语言（例如中文）的问题。我们将得出的一个结论是，不同语言中 NP 的句法结构映射到其外延的方式存在一些有限的变化。如果要根据参数差异来解释跨语言变异，那么质量/计数区别似乎为语义参数提供了证据。在本引言的其余部分中，我将首先尝试以一种非常非正式的方式给出要辩护的主要论文的想法。然后我简单回顾一下要核算的主要数据。展望本文的整体组织，在第 2 节中，我给出了一些关于多元化性质的背景假设。在第 3 节中，我将详细介绍固有复数假设，并展示它如何解释下面提供的数据。在第 4 节中，我将进一步考虑固有多元化假说的实证结果，并了解它与当前其他有影响力的方法样本的比较。最后，在第五节中，我将解决据称没有可数名词的语言问题。
The main thesis I would like to develop and defend in this paper is that mass nouns come out of the lexicon with plurality already built in and that that is the (only) way in which they differ from count nouns. On the basis of this hypothesis (let us dub it the Inherent Plurality Hypothesis), I will offer a new account of the distribution of mass and count quantifiers, one that takes into consideration possible crosslinguistic variations in such distribution. I will also address, in a preliminary and somewhat speculative way, the issue of languages (such as Chinese) that are said not to have count nouns. One conclusion that we will reach is that there is some limited variation in the way in which the syntactic structure of NPs is mapped onto its denotation across different languages. If crosslinguistic variation is to be accounted for in terms of parametric differences, then the mass/count distinction seems to provide evidence for a semantic parameter. In the rest of this introduction, I will first try to give in a highly informal way an idea of the main thesis to be defended. Then I will briefly review the main data to be accounted for. Looking ahead to the overall organization of the paper, in section 2 I give some background assumptions on the nature of plurality. In section 3 I will present in detail the Inherent Plurality Hypothesis and show how it accounts for the data presented below. In section 4, I will consider further empirical consequences of the Inherent Plurality Hypothesis and see how it compares to a sample of other current influential approaches. Finally, in section 5, I will tackle the issue of languages allegedly without count nouns.