Semantics for Counting and Measuring

ISBN-13: 9780521171823 / Angielski / Miękka / 2019 / 288 str.

Susan Rothstein

Opis

The book is an investigation of the semantics of numericals, counting and measuring, and its connection to the mass/count distinction from a theoretical and crosslinguistic perspective. It reviews some recent major linguistic results in these topics, and presents the author's new research including in-depth case studies of a number of typologically unrelated languages.

Recenzje

'At the interface between cognition, language, and ontology, traditional views on mass vs count are seriously challenged by languages such as Hungarian, Brazilian Portuguese and Yudja. Rothstein brilliantly deals with these difficult issues by distinguishing counting and measuring as two types of semantic operation. A work of great breadth that opens new research avenues.' Roberta Pires de Oliveira, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil and Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil

Spis treści

List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Numericals and how they work; 3. Counting and measuring; 4. The mass count distinction; 5. Object mass nouns, measuring and counting; 6. A crosslinguistic perspective; 7. The universal grinder; 8. Classifiers; 9. Measures; 10. Additive and attributive uses of measures; 11. In conclusion; ENVOI; References.