Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review

Comprehension and/or production of noun phrases and sentences requires the selection of lexical-syntactic attributes of nouns. These lexical-syntactic attributes include grammatical gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), number (singular/plural) and countability (mass/count). While there has been consi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fieder, N., Nickels, L., Biedermann, Britta-Andrea
Format: Journal Article
Published: Frontiers Research Foundation 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11186
_version_ 1848747738131333120
author Fieder, N.
Nickels, L.
Biedermann, Britta-Andrea
author_facet Fieder, N.
Nickels, L.
Biedermann, Britta-Andrea
author_sort Fieder, N.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Comprehension and/or production of noun phrases and sentences requires the selection of lexical-syntactic attributes of nouns. These lexical-syntactic attributes include grammatical gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), number (singular/plural) and countability (mass/count). While there has been considerable discussion regarding gender and number, relatively little attention has focused on countability. Therefore, this article reviews empirical evidence for lexical-syntactic specification of nouns for countability. This includes evidence from studies of language production and comprehension with normal speakers and case studies which assess impairments of mass/count nouns in people with acquired brain damage. Current theories of language processing are reviewed and found to be lacking specification regarding countability. Subsequently, the theoretical implications of the empirical studies are discussed in the context of frameworks derived from these accounts of language production (Levelt, 1989; Levelt et al., 1999) and comprehension (Taler and Jarema, 2006). The review concludes that there is empirical support for specification of nouns for countability at a lexical-syntactic level.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T06:53:55Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-11186
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
last_indexed 2025-11-14T06:53:55Z
publishDate 2014
publisher Frontiers Research Foundation
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-111862017-09-13T14:53:52Z Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review Fieder, N. Nickels, L. Biedermann, Britta-Andrea Comprehension and/or production of noun phrases and sentences requires the selection of lexical-syntactic attributes of nouns. These lexical-syntactic attributes include grammatical gender (masculine/feminine/neuter), number (singular/plural) and countability (mass/count). While there has been considerable discussion regarding gender and number, relatively little attention has focused on countability. Therefore, this article reviews empirical evidence for lexical-syntactic specification of nouns for countability. This includes evidence from studies of language production and comprehension with normal speakers and case studies which assess impairments of mass/count nouns in people with acquired brain damage. Current theories of language processing are reviewed and found to be lacking specification regarding countability. Subsequently, the theoretical implications of the empirical studies are discussed in the context of frameworks derived from these accounts of language production (Levelt, 1989; Levelt et al., 1999) and comprehension (Taler and Jarema, 2006). The review concludes that there is empirical support for specification of nouns for countability at a lexical-syntactic level. 2014 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11186 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00589 Frontiers Research Foundation fulltext
spellingShingle Fieder, N.
Nickels, L.
Biedermann, Britta-Andrea
Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review
title Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review
title_full Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review
title_fullStr Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review
title_full_unstemmed Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review
title_short Representation and processing of mass and count nouns: A review
title_sort representation and processing of mass and count nouns: a review
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11186