Contenu du sommaire : Opposition massif / comptable dans le domaine du nom

An overview of the mass/count distinction and the dichotomic oppositions involved. This article examines the problems caused by the classic binary oppositions such as countable/non-countable, homogeneous/non-homogeneous, bounded/non-bounded when we deal with questions about the mass/count distinction applied on nouns. Our goal is to arouse a theoretical debate in order to clarify these dichotomic features and to see which one is more suitable. The couple external vs internal limits combined with the notions of occurrence (instances) and situation of occurrences seems to offer a satisfactory solution.

Marco Fasciolo, Mass/count: an arbitrary or a motivated opposition? This article deals with a dilemma about the mass/count nouns' distinction: is it arbitrary or ontological motivated? This article attacks the prejudice stating that the autonomy of grammar excludes ontological motivation. In the first part, we will put forward two arguments for the grammatical autonomy of the distinction between mass nouns and count nouns. In the second part, we will argue that there are some concrete mass nouns whose quantification matches an independent ontological ground, and that there are some other mass nouns whose quantification draws lexical distinctions without any ontological ground. The formers are ontological motivated, the latter are not. Two conclusions will follow. Firstly: the idea that the autonomy of grammar is the presupposition of both motivation and non motivation. Secondly: a key to understand the strengths and the weaknesses of the debate about the motivation of mass/count nouns.

Nouns for materials and the mass-count distinction in French. A corpus study. Based on data gathered from WebCorp, we conduct a morphosyntactic and semantic distributional study of names of materials in French. We find (i) a common mass reading, regardless of the variety of profiles, denoting “building material”, and (ii) two distinct phenomena underlying the observed count usages: productive, transferred readings (Sorter and Collector) and lexicalized readings (objects and collections of objects). From a theoretical point of view, our study puts forth (i) a correlation between knowledge of the morphosyntactic behavior of nouns and surface distributional profiles, and (ii) a double representation of the mass/count distinction, both at a lexical, distributional level, and at a supra-lexical level of semantic regroupings that have predictive power as to the mass or count realization of nouns in context.

Massive/countable and property nouns. French property nouns (e.g. tristesse, patience) tend to be massive but, when a modifier (tristesse / *de la grande tristesse; une patience d'ange / *de la patience d'ange) is added, they require an indefinite article. We suggest to explain that puzzling phenomenon by postulating a new tupe of massive to countable transfer that we call qualitative occurrence transfer. It consists in converting a du+N sequence that is qualitatively indefinite into a un N + modifier sequence that is quantitatively defined by the modifier.

Mass collective reference vs indefinite plural reference. This study tends to solve a linguistic riddle in French language: which are the semantic differences between the mass collective du mobilier (furniture) and the indefinite plural des meubles (pieces of furniture)? By analysing the semantic properties of these two nouns, the kinds of referents they can designate and the way they refer to them, we show that du mobilier implies a set view of the objects in a top-down movement going from the collection to its parts and that des meubles gives a categorial angle in a bottom-up movement going from the individual objects to the indefinite plurality.

An indicator of massiveness: the enigmatic un peu de. This article highlights the key dimensions that structure the opposition massif/comptable through the contrast between peu de, compatible with both types of nouns, and un peu de, which combines only with mass nouns. Examination of the opposition between these two expressions, considered only as determiners, is successively done according to the number being expressed or not, depending on the semantic variability or invariability relative to a standard, and according to the kleiberian concept of occurrences which reorders the criteria of intrinsic or contingent limits and of internal homogeneity/heterogeneity specific to massive or countable occurrences.

Lexical plurals. A quantified typology of countability deficiency. This study offers a systematic analysis of the phenomenon of [-count] (lexical) plurals (*trois épinards, ‘3 spinach'), which are subjected to a series of linguistic tests. On the basis of a large corpus inquiry, combined with a sentence rating task, a typology of plural nouns is proposed, showing that [-count] plurals constitute a gradual phenomenon. The analysis also points out some interesting mass/count shifts and shows some statistically significant correlations between the tests.