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

“麦克斯写了书”这句话只能表示麦克斯写了两本或两本以上的书。“书”上标记“-S”的出现似乎引发了一种非单数的解释。然而，“麦克斯没有写书”意味着麦克斯甚至没有写过一本书。显然，复数名词，如‘book’，有时可以指多个(即2个或更多)或单个(即1个)。名词的形式和意义之间的这种不匹配是什么时候可能的？在一些语言中，与英语不同，名词上有可选的复数标记；在那些语言中，即使没有复数标记，名词也可以自由地用于单数或复数。这个博士论文项目调查了一种未被研究的语言变体，它表现出这种特殊的性质，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的语言表达的性质的基础。该项目还有助于培训和多样化下一代语言研究人员，邀请STEM代表性不足群体的本科生参与科学研究，重点发展与数据收集技术、数据分析、项目管理和项目演示有关的学术和行业相关技能。这个项目记录和分析了一种语言的语言数据，这种语言标志着单数和复数之间的语法区别，很像英语，在第一遍的描述水平上：单数名词是无标记的，复数名词是有标记的。然而，有一个重要的区别：适用于无生命事物的无标记名词被解释为数字中立(即，可以被理解为适用于一个或多个事物)，而无标记有生命名词则严格地是单数，因此只有复数有标记表达适用于两个或两个以上的复数。当名词与量词组合时，也会发现同样的模式，比如要求名词适用于复数的量词表达，但当名词被数字修饰时，就不会发现这种模式。这种语言中的数词要求它们所修饰的名词是无标记的，并被理解为语义上的单数。这个项目将这些数字标记模式与“质量-计数”区分，以及测量和计数的语言联系起来。该项目因此将不同的研究传统联系在一起，并扩大了该领域对如何跨语言表达数字和相关类别的集体理解，以揭示人类语言和认知的深层属性。因此，这项研究提供了与句法和语义学相邻的领域，其中数和可数概念发挥着重要作用，包括哲学、语言习得和认知心理学。在语言学领域，这项工作为理论驱动的实地研究提供了最佳的方法论实践，涉及引出形态句法和语义数据。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.