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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. 352–365

The count/mass distinction in Taurepang

| State University of Roraima
This paper presents a description of the count/mass distinction in Taurepang, a Cariban language spoken in Brazil and Venezuela. The methodology used was based on Lima & Rothstein’s questionnaire (this volume). We show that Taurepang is a bare noun language and that mass and count nouns can be pluralized. Despite nominal quantifiers have the same distribution, they show different interpretation with count and mass nouns. As the data also shows that numerals distinguish count and mass nouns and that container phrases trigger the count/measure interpretation, we assume here that the denotation of mass nouns in Taurepang cannot be count.
Keywords: count/mass distinction, Semantics, quantification, Taurepang
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The distribution of numerals
  • 3.Plurals in Taurepang
    • 3.1A Quantity Judgement Task in Taurepang
  • 4.The distribution and interpretation of nominal quantifiers
    • 4.1Comparatives
  • 5.Container phrases of Taurepang
  • 6.General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00026.cou
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