articles in general and definite articles in particular can create problems even long after all other aspects of english have been mastered. the present article investigated the learnability problems related to the acquisition of count-mass distinction of english nominals by persian l2 learners. the theoretical underpinning of the study is the interpretability hypothesis (tsimpli & dimitrak...

In this paper I propose and formalize a theory of the mass-count distinction in which the denotations of count nouns are built from non-overlapping generators, while the denotations of mass nouns are built from overlapping generators. Counting is counting of generators, and it will follow that counting is only correct on count denotations. I will show that the theory allows two kinds of mass no...

Three experiments explored the semantics of the mass-count distinction in young children and adults. In Experiments 1 and 2, the quantity judgments of participants provided evidence that some mass nouns refer to individuals, as such. Participants judged one large portion of stuff to be "more" than three tiny portions for substance-mass nouns (e.g. mustard, ketchup), but chose according to numbe...

We explored the mapping between mass-count syntax and semantics, and how verb event semantics affect the meaning of derived nouns. In Experiment 1, we compared the interpretation of mass and count nouns derived from iterative verbs that describe bounded events (e.g., jump) and nouns derived from non-iterative verbs that describe unbounded events (e.g., dance). Participants based judgments prima...

This paper offers an account of the semantics of count nous. I show that neither the atomic/nonatomic distinction nor the homogeneous/non-homogeneous distinction is sufficient to explain the semantic contrast between mass and count nouns, since there are mass nouns which are atomic, and there are count nouns which are homogeneous. Starting from a version of Chierchia's 1998a account of the sema...

This paper proposes a method for detecting errors concerning article usage and singular/plural usage based on the mass count distinction. Although the mass count distinction is particularly important in detecting these errors, it has been pointed out that it is hard to make heuristic rules for distinguishing mass and count nouns. To solve the problem, first, instances of mass and count nouns ar...

This paper explores the properties of mass and count nouns in child language. Results from experimental research with English speaking children are compared with an analysis of the spontaneous speech production of Italian-speaking children. It is argued that children exposed to Italian and English as young as two know that the target grammar distinguishes between count and mass nouns. Their kno...