The Syntax-Semantics Group will hold its next meeting on Thursday, January 29, at 2-3pm in Room 002 of the McGill linguistics department. Online participants can join with this link: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/84180431566
Austin Kraft (McGill) will be presenting “Countability in Javanese: ‘language’ and other nouns” Here is the abstract:
- I present a pattern of numeral marking in Javanese (Austronesian) that, while initially puzzling, gives new evidence that a numeral’s compositional role—number-denoting or property-denoting—is legible from the numeral’s overt form. Alongside canonical count and mass nouns, some Javanese nouns occupy an apparent third category that I term “basa-type nouns.” This category includes basa ‘language,’ as well as nouns for ‘type,’ ‘part,’ and ‘colour’ among others. The defining morphosyntax of basa-type nouns is that they cannot be counted over using the strategy that is employed for counting over canonical count nouns. Instead, basa-type nouns need some external support in order to be counted over, suggestive of classifiers or similar elements already proposed to enable counting over otherwise uncountable nouns (e.g., furniture in English). I present evidence that counting over basa-type nouns does not involve measure classifiers but rather a compositional step that is more local to the noun itself. Time permitting, I consider what semantic characteristic—if any—might unify basa-type nouns.