The count/mass distinction in Ye’kwana
This paper presents a description of the count/mass distinction in Ye’kwana, a Cariban language spoken in Brazil and Venezuela. The methodology used was based on Lima & Rothstein’s questionnaire this volume). The data shows that Ye’kwana is a bare noun language and that mass and count nouns can be pluralized. However, numerals need a container phrase in order to be directly combined with mass nouns. Nominal quantifiers wanna and ooje can be directly combined with count and mass nouns, but they show different interpretations.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Ye’kwana is a bare noun language
- 3.Mass and count nouns can be pluralized in Ye’kwana
- 4.Numerals and the count/mass distinction
- 5.Quantifiers can be directly combined with count and mass nouns
- 6.Container phrases in Ye’kwana
- 7.Final remarks
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (11)
References
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Cited by (1)
Cited by one other publication
Assis Navarro, Michel Platiny
2024.
Countability in Kaingang.
Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 9:1
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