Article published In:
A typology of the mass/count distinction in Brazil and its relevance for mass/count theoriesEdited by Suzi Lima and Susan Rothstein
[Linguistic Variation 20:2] 2020
► pp. 219–229
The goals of this paper are to describe the grammatical properties of nouns and number in Dâw (Naduhup family, Northwestern Amazonia, Brazil) using Lima & Rothstein’s questionnaire (this volume) on mass versus count nouns and to contribute to the typological and semantic literature on nouns and number. Our results show that Dâw is a bare argument language, with no plural on nouns or numeral classifiers, in which all nouns can be counted directly without the need of a measure or container phrase. A difference between notionally count and mass nouns can be found only when different sets of quantifiers are combined with mass and count nouns and in comparatives.