Doctoral Dissertation Research: The grammar of number, countability and measurement

句子“Max写过书”只能表示Max写过两本或两本以上的书。“book”上标记“-s”的出现似乎会引发一种非单数的解释。然而，“Max didn ' t write books”意味着甚至没有一本书是Max写的。显然，像“books”这样的复数名词有时可以指复数（即2或更多）或单个（即1）。名词的形式和意思什么时候会出现这种不匹配呢？在一些语言中，与英语不同，名词上有可选的复数标记；在这些语言中，即使没有复数标记，名词也可以自由地用于单数或复数。这个博士论文项目研究了一种未被充分研究的语言，它展示了这种特殊的特性，使用对说话者的采访和叙述的记录和转录作为分析这种语言和跨语言中数字语言表达特性的基础。该项目还有助于培养和多样化下一代语言研究人员，邀请来自STEM中代表性不足群体的本科生参与科学研究，重点是发展与数据收集技术，数据分析，项目管理和项目演示相关的学术和行业相关技能。该项目记录并分析了来自一种语言的语言数据，这种语言很像英语，在第一次通过的描述水平上标记了单数和复数之间的语法区别：单数名词没有标记，复数名词有标记。然而，有一个重要的区别：适用于无生命事物的未标记名词被解释为数字中性（即可以理解为适用于一件事或不止一件事），而相反，未标记的有生命的名词则是严格的单数，因此只有复数标记的表达才适用于两个或两个以上的复数。当名词与“many”这样的量词结合使用时，也会出现同样的情况，因为“many”要求名词使用复数形式，但当名词被“seventeen”这样的数字修饰时，就不会出现这种情况。这种语言中的数字要求它们所修饰的名词不加标记，并且在语义上被理解为单数。该项目将这些数字标记模式与“质量计数”的区别以及测量和计数的语言联系起来。因此，该项目连接了不同的研究传统，并加深了该领域对数字和相关类别如何跨语言表达的集体理解，揭示了人类语言和认知的深层特性。因此，这项研究为语法和语义学的相关领域提供了信息，在这些领域中，数和可数的概念发挥着重要作用，包括哲学、语言习得和认知心理学。在语言学中，这项工作有助于理论驱动的田野工作的最佳方法实践，涉及引出形态句法和语义数据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The sentence 'Max wrote books' can only signify that there are two or more books that Max wrote. The presence of the marker '-s' on 'book' seems to induce a non-singular interpretation. However, 'Max didn’t write books' signifies that there is not even one book that Max wrote. Evidently, plural nouns such as 'books' can sometimes refer to a plurality (i.e., 2 or more) or a singleton (i.e., 1). When are such mismatches between the form of a noun and its meaning possible? In some languages, unlike in English, there is optional plural marking on nouns; in those languages, even if the plural marker is absent, the noun may freely apply to either singulars or plurals. This doctoral dissertation project investigates an understudied language variety that exhibits this particular property, using interviews with speakers and the recording and transcription of narratives as the basis for an analysis of the properties of the linguistic expression of number in this language and cross-linguistically. This project also contributes to the training and diversification of the next generation of language researchers, inviting undergraduate students from under­represented groups in STEM to participate in scientific research with an emphasis on developing both academic and industry-­relevant skills related to data collection techniques, data analysis, project management, and project presentation. This project documents and analyzes linguistic data from a language that marks the grammatical distinction between singular and plural rather like English, at a first pass level of description: singular nouns are unmarked and plural nouns are marked. However, there is an important difference: unmarked nouns that apply to inanimate things are interpreted as number neutral (i.e., can be understood to apply to one thing, or to more than one) while unmarked animate nouns, in contrast, are strictly singular, so only plural marked expressions apply to pluralities of two or more. The same pattern is found when the nouns combine with measure expressions like 'many' which require that the noun apply to pluralities, but it is not found when the noun is modified by a numeral like 'seventeen'. Numerals in this language require that the noun they modify be unmarked and understood to be semantically singular. This project connects these patterns of number marking to the 'mass-count' distinction, and the language of measurement and counting. The project thereby connects different research traditions and grows the field's collective understanding of how number and related categories are expressed cross-linguistically, to reveal deep properties of human language and cognition. The research therefore informs fields adjacent to syntax and semantics wherein notions of number and countability play an important role, including philosophy, language acquisition, and cognitive psychology. Within linguistics, this work contributes to best methodological practices for theoretically-driven fieldwork concerned with eliciting morpho-syntactic and semantic data.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.