Cover not available
Article published In:
A typology of the mass/count distinction in Brazil and its relevance for mass/count theories
Edited by Suzi Lima and Susan Rothstein
[Linguistic Variation 20:2] 2020
► pp. 174–218

A typology of the mass/count distinction in Brazil and its relevance for mass/count theories

| University of Toronto
| Bar Ilan University

While much work has been done on the description of the mass/count distinction in different geographical areas, Brazilian Indigenous languages are still highly underrepresented in the field. This paper presents the results of a project that involved researchers describing the mass/count distinction in 15 Brazilian Indigenous languages, based on a questionnaire we prepared in 2016 in order to explore the distribution of bare nouns, plurals, numerals, and quantifiers (see Appendix). Three main observations will be drawn. First, number marking and countability are independent. Second, counting is not restricted to natural atoms. Third, since there seems to be no systematic symmetry in the distribution of plurals, numerals, and quantifiers, we argue that the standard diagnostics for countable vs. non-countable nouns are highly language-specific.

Keywords: atomicity, Brazil, count nouns, mass nouns, numerals, plurals, quantifiers
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A questionnaire on the mass/count distinction
  • 3.Results: The mass/count distinction in Brazilian Indigenous languages
    • 3.1Introduction
    • 3.2An overview of a preliminary typology of mass/count in Brazil
      • 3.2.1Large families (stocks): Macro-Jê and Tupi languages
        • Macro-Jê
          • Bare arguments
          • Plurals
          • Numerals
          • Quantifiers
        • Tupi languages
          • Bare arguments
          • Plurals
          • Numerals
          • Quantifiers
      • 3.2.2Large size families: Arawak (Aruák, Maipure) and Carib (Karib)
        • Arawak
          • Bare arguments
          • Plurals
          • Numerals and quantifiers
        • Carib
          • Bare arguments
          • Plurals
          • Numerals
          • Quantifiers
      • 3.2.3Medium size families: Nadahup
      • 3.2.4Small language families: Guaicuru
      • 3.2.5Isolate languages: Guató
      • 3.2.6Revitalized languages: Patxohã
    • 3.3Summary
  • 4.Implications of Brazilian languages for the typology of mass/count contrasts
  • 5.Final considerations
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00015.lim
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
2000 Classifiers: A typology of noun categorization devices. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2012 Languages of the Amazon. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bale, Alan & David Barner
2009 The interpretation of functional heads: using comparatives to explore the mass/count distinction. Journal of Semantics 26(3). 217–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 Quantity judgment and the mass-count distinction across languages: Advances, problems, and future directions for research. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3(1). 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barner, David & Jesse Snedeker
2005 Quantity judgments and individuation: Evidence that mass nouns count. Cognition 97(1). 41–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barner, David, Laura Wagner & Jesse Snedeker
2008 Events and the ontology of individuals: Verbs as a source of individuating mass and count nouns. Cognition, 106(2), 805–832. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borer, Hagit
2005 Structuring sense (Volume 11). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bunt, Harry C.
1985 Mass terms and model-theoretic semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Casati, Roberto & Achille C. Varzi
1999 Parts and places: The structures of spatial representation. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cheng, Lisa Lai-Shen & Rint Sybesma
1999 Bare and not-so-bare nouns and the structure of NP. Linguistic Inquiry 30(4). 509–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro
1998a Plurality of mass nouns and the notion of ‘semantic parameter’ In Events and grammar, 53–103. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1998b Reference to kinds across language. Natural Language Semantics 6(4). 339–405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation. Synthese 1741. 99–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 How universal is the mass/count distinction? Three grammars of counting. In Yen-hui Audrey Li, Andrew Simpson & Wei-Tien Dylan Tsai (eds.), Chinese syntax: A cross-linguistic perspective, 147–177. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Costa, Isabella
2018 A quantificação Ye’kwana: A distinção contável-massivo. Rio de Janeiro: UFRJ thesis.Google Scholar
Dalrymple, Mary & Suriel Mofu
2012 Plural semantics, reduplication, and numeral modification in Indonesian. Journal of Semantics 29(2). 229–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davis, Henry
2014 The count-mass distinction in St’át’imcets (and beyond). In Forty-ninth International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages (ICSNL 49), University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 371. 155–81.Google Scholar
Davis, Henry & Lisa Matthewson
1999 On the functional determination of lexical categories. Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 27(2). 29–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deal, Amy Rose
2017 Countability distinctions and semantic variation. Natural Language Semantics 25(2). 125–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doetjes, Jenny
1997 Quantifiers and selection: on the distribution of quantifying expressions in French, Dutch and English. Leiden/The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
2017 The count/mass distinction in grammar and cognition. Annual Review of Linguistics 31. 199–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doron, Edit & Ana Müller
2013 The cognitive basis of the mass-count distinction: Evidence from bare nouns. In Patricia Cabredo Hofherr & Anne Zribi-Hertz (eds.), Crosslinguistic studies on noun phrase structure and reference, 73–101. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Franchetto, Bruna, Mara Santos & Suzi Lima
(2013) Count/mass distinction in Kuikuro: On individuation and counting. Revista Linguística 9(1). 55–78.Google Scholar
Gabas Jr., Nilson
1999 A grammar of Karo, Tupí (Brazil). Santa Barbara: University of California dissertation.Google Scholar
Gillon, Carrie
2010 The mass/count distinction in Innu-aimun: Implications for the meaning of plurality. The Fifteenth Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas (WSCLA 15), 12–29.Google Scholar
2012 Evidence for mass and count in Inuttut. Linguistic Variation 12(2), 211–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gleason, Henry A.
1965 Linguistics and english grammar. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph
1974 Language typology. A historical and analytic overview. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gomes, Dioney
2009 Classificação nominal em Mundurukú: Forma, função e tipologia. LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 9(1). 7–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimm, Scott
2012 Number and individuation. Stanford: Stanford University dissertation.Google Scholar
Grimm, Scott & Beth Levin
2012 Who has more furniture? An exploration of the bases for comparison. Mass/Count in Linguistics, Philosophy and Cognitive Science Conference, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France, December 2012.Google Scholar
Guerra Vicente, Helena & Marcelo Giovannetti
2016 Number and the expression of the count/mass distinction in English, Brazilian Portuguese and Wapishana: What is universal? What is variable? In Thuy Bui & Ivan Rudmila-Rodica (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Conference on The Semantics of Underrepresented Languages in the Americas (SULA 9), 213–22. Santa Cruz: University of California.Google Scholar
Kouneli, Maria
2019 Plural marking on mass nouns: Evidence from Greek. In Eric Mathieu, Myriam Dali & Gita Zareikar (eds.), Gender and noun classification, 233–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Landman, Fred
2004 Indefinites and the type of sets. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lima, Suzi
2014 The grammar of individuation and counting. Amherst: University of Massachusetts at Amherst dissertation.Google Scholar
2018 New perspectives on the count-mass distinction: Understudied languages and psycholinguistics. Language and Linguistics Compass 12(11), e12303. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lima, Suzi, Peggy Li & Jesse Snedeker
2017 In Jiyoung Choi, Hamida Demirdache, Oana Lungu (eds.), Acquiring the denotation of object denoting nouns. Language acquisition at the interfaces: Proceedings of GALA 2015. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Lima, Suzi & Pikuruk Kayabi
2015 Construções com numerais em Kawaiwete e a distinção contável-massivo. In Angela Fabiola Alves Chagas, Antonio Almir Silva Gomes e Eduardo Alves Vasconcelos (eds.), Aspectos gramaticais de línguas indigenas sulamaricanas, 69–82. Macapá: Editora Autografia/EDUNIFAP.Google Scholar
Link, Godehard
1983 The logical analysis of plural and mass nouns: A lattice-theoretic approach. In Meaning, use, and interpretation of language, 302–23. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mathieu, Eric
2012 On the mass/count distinction in Ojibwe. In Diane Massam (ed.), Count and mass across languages, 172–98. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moore, Denny
2006 Brazil: Language situation. Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, 117–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moore, Denny, Ana Vilacy Galucio & Nilson Gabas Jr.
2008 O desafio de documentar e preservar as línguas amazônicas. Scientific American Brasil 31. 36–43.Google Scholar
Müller, A., Luciana Storto & Thiago Coutinho-Silva
2006 Number and the mass/count distinction in Karitiana. In Workshop on Structure and Constituency in Languages of the Americas 11 (UBCWPL 19), 122–35.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara & Vladimir Borschev
2012 Sortal, relational, and functional interpretations of nouns and Russian container constructions. Journal of Semantics 291. 445–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pelletier, Francis Jeffry
1975 Non-singular reference: Some preliminaries. Philosophia 51. 451–65 (reprinted in Pelletier 1979) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pelletier, F. J.
2012 Lexical nouns are both +MASS and +COUNT, but they are neither +MASS nor +COUNT. In Diane Massam (ed.), Count and mass across languages, 9–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pelletier, Francis Jeffry & Schubert, Lenhart. K.
1989 Mass expressions. In Dov Gabbay and Franz Guenthner (eds.), Handbook of philosophical logic, Vol. 41, 327–407. Dordrecht: Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pires de Oliveira, Roberta & Marcelo Giovannetti
2016 The nominal system in Wapishana (Aruák): First thoughts. In Thuy Bui & Rudmila-Rodica Ivan (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth Conference on the Semantics of Underrepresented Languages in the Americas (SULA 9), 113–16. Santa Cruz: University of California.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan
2009 Measuring and counting in Modern Hebrew. Brill’s Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 11: 106–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rodrigues, Aryon Dall’Igna
1986 Línguas brasileiras: para o conhecimento das línguas indígenas. São Paulo: Loyola.Google Scholar
2005 Sobre as línguas indígenas e sua pesquisa no Brasil. Ciência e cultura 57(2). 35–38.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Susan
2010 Counting and the mass/count distinction. Journal of Semantics 271. 343–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Counting, measuring and the semantics of classifiers. The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 61, 1–42.Google Scholar
2017 Semantics for counting and measuring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rothstein, Susan, & Suzi Lima
2018 Quantity evaluations in Yudja: Judgements, language and cultural practice. Synthese, 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Santos, Manoel
2006 Uma gramática do Wapixana (Aruák) – Aspectos da fonologia, da morfologia e da sintaxe. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas dissertation.Google Scholar
Sanchez-Mendes, Luciana
2016 A distinção contável-massivo em Wapixana: aparente desafio tipológico. Revista do GEL 131. 138–162.Google Scholar
Schwarzschild, Roger
2011 Stubborn distributivity, mutiparticipant nouns and the count/mass distinction. In Suzi Lima, Kevin Mullin & Brian Smith (eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 39), Volume 21, 661–78. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Selkirk, Lisa
1977 Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In Studies in formal syntax, eds. Peter Culicover, Thomas Wasow and Adrian Akmajian, 285–316. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, Mahesh, Eleanor Chestnut, Peggy Li, & David Barner
2013 Sortal concepts and pragmatic inference in children’s early quantification of objects. Cognitive Psychology 661. 302–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Srinivasan, Mahesh & Barner, David
2016 Encoding individuals in language using syntax, words, and pragmatic inference. WIREs Cognitive Science 7(5). 341–53. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Storto, Luciana & Jessica Costa
2015 Classificação nominal em línguas Tupi. Moara 43 (2). Belém: UFPA. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tsoulas, George
2009 On the grammar of number and mass terms in Greek. In Clair Halpert, Jeremy Hartman & David Hill (eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop in Greek Syntax and Semantics 571. 131–46. Cambridge, MA: MITWPL.Google Scholar
Wiese, Heike, and Joan Maling
2005 Beers, kaffi, and schnapps – different grammatical options for ‘restaurant talk’ coercions in three germanic languages. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 171: 1–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilhelm, Andrea
2008 Bare nouns and number in Dëne Sųłiné. Natural Language Semantics 161. 39–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiltschko, Martina
2012 Decomposing the mass/count distinction: Evidence from languages that lack it. In Diane Massam (ed.), Count and mass across languages, 120–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar