Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Count/Mass Distinction in Native and Non-Native Grammar

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Language and cognition are deeply related, influencing each other in both universal and language-specific ways. This dissertation project aims to examine the relationship between the cognitive object/substance distinction and the linguistic count/mass distinction. More specifically, this project investigates how English, Korean and Mandarin Chinese speakers use and interpret count vs. mass nouns in their native languages and how Korean-speaking and Mandarin-speaking learners of English as a second language use and interpret count and mass nouns in English. This project aims to provide insights into what is universal and what is language-specific in the domain of the count/mass distinction. This project also has the potential to inform educators, language teaching professionals and developers of language teaching software about learners' use of the count/mass distinction.To meet its goals, this dissertation research will first investigate the relationship between the object/substance interpretation and the grammar of the count/mass distinction in English, Korean and Mandarin. Once the properties of the count/mass distinction in all three languages are established, this research will examine how Korean-speaking and Mandarin-speaking learners of English interpret different types of English nouns, as well as how they judge and process English plural marking (a marker of the count/mass distinction), in both offline and online (reaction-time) tasks. This project will contribute to the fields of theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics by providing information on grammatical knowledge and processing in both native and non-native language. Furthermore, this project enhances the understanding of the grammars of East Asian languages, specifically Korean and Mandarin Chinese.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.