Article published in:
Lexical plurals and beyond
Edited by Peter Lauwers and Marie Lammert
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 39:2] 2016
► pp. 355–372

Lexical plurals for aggregates of discrete entities in English

Why plural, yet non-count, nouns?

| Université Grenoble Alpes
This paper studies why, for a plurality of discrete entities, a non-count plural might be preferred over a count noun or a non-count singular. Building partly on Wierzbicka (1985, 1988), it proposes two parameters: semantics, but also morphology. With lexical plurals, the items are construed as being of different kinds (vs. count nouns) and the focus is on the plurality of items rather than on a common purpose (vs. non-count singulars). For morphology, the notion of ‘attractor’ is proposed for some patterns which partly motivate the [±count] and number features. A collateral finding is that the plural of lexical plurals can be unstable: some nouns ending with -s undergo reanalysis as morphological plurals, while Latin plurals tend to be reanalysed as singulars. It is suggested that this trend confirms the semantic values of singular and plural numbers, as well as the influence of the morphological parameter on number and construal.
Keywords: lexical plurals, aggregates, count/non-count, grammatical/lexical number, morphological attractor
Published online: 30 March 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.39.2.08lga
References

References

Acquaviva, P.
(2004) Plural mass nouns and the compositionality of number. Verbum, 26 (4), 387–401.Google Scholar
(2008) Lexical plurals: A morphosemantic approach. Studies in Thoretical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Allan, K.
(1980) Nouns and Countability. Language 56, 541–567. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, E.
(2015) Antiques and collectibles 2016 price guide. 32nd edition. Iola, Wisconsin: F+W Media.Google Scholar
Brownell, D.. Jr
(2010) Antiques and collectibles 2011 price guide. 27th edition. Iola, Wisconsin: F+W Media.Google Scholar
Clarke, H.
(1859) A grammar of the English tongue, spoken and written, for self-teaching and for schools. London: John Weale.Google Scholar
Davies, Mark
(2008-) The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 520 million words, 1990-present. Available online at http://​corpus​.byu​.edu​/coca/.Google Scholar
Debenham’s website. Debenham’s Retail plc
2011–2016 < http://​www​.debenhams​.com/ (accessed 2016)
Doggett, R., O’Farrell, M. K., & Watson, A. L.
(1980) Forecasts of the quantity and composition of solid waste. Research Reporting Series. Cincinnati, Ohio: United States Environmental Protection Agency.Google Scholar
Frege, G.
(1950) The Foundations of Arithmetic. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Translated by J. L. Austin; first published in 1884 as Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Breslau: W. Köbner).Google Scholar
Graf, J. F.
(2006) Warman’s Civil War collectibles: Identification and price guide. 2nd edition. Iola, Wisconsin: Iola.Google Scholar
Huddleston, R., & Pullum, G. K.
(2002) The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R.
(1991) Parts and boundaries. In B. Levin, & S. Pinker (Eds.), Lexical and conceptual semantics (pp. 9–45). Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lauwers, P.
(2014) Les pluriels ‘lexicaux’. Typologie quantifiée des déficits de dénombrabilité. Langue française, 183, 117–132. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maloney, D. J.. Jr
(2003) Maloney’s antiques and collectibles resource directory. 7th edition. Fairfield, Ohio: Antique Trader.Google Scholar
McNally, L.
(1993) Comitative coordination: a case study in group formation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 11, 347–379. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Moran, M. F.
(2011) Warman’s antiques & collectibles 2012. 45th edition. Iola, WI: F+W Media.Google Scholar
Murphy, M. L.
(2010) Lexical meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary Online
(2016) Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Stolz, C.
(2009) A different kind of gender problem: Maltese loanword gender from a typological perspective. In B. Comrie, et al. (Eds.), Introducing Maltese Linguistics (pp. 321–354). Amsterdam: John Benjamin. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H.-J.
(1996) An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A.
(1985) ‘Oats’ and ‘wheat’: the fallacy of arbitrariness. In J. Haiman (Ed.), Iconicity in syntax (pp. 311–342). Amsterdam: John Benjamin. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1988) The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamin. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wilmshurst, J., & Mackay A.
(2002) The fundamentals and practice of marketing. 4th edition. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Zhang, N.N.
(2009) Coordination in syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by other publications

No author info given
2019.  In Semantic Plurality [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 349], Crossref logo
Corbett, Greville G.
2019. Pluralia tantum nouns and the theory of features: a typology of nouns with non-canonical number properties. Morphology 29:1 ► pp. 51 ff. Crossref logo
Gardelle, Laure
2018. Are there any collective nouns among lexical plurals in English?. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 63:1 ► pp. 25 ff. Crossref logo
Mackenzie, J. Lachlan
2019. Is there a pluralia tantum subcategory of nominal gerunds? Developing Gaeta's notion of morphological differentiation. Language Sciences 73 ► pp. 179 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 05 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.