Viviane Déprez (2006) “On the Conceptual Role of Number”. In New Perspectives on Romance Linguistics, Nishida, Chiyo and Jean-Pierre Y. Montreuil (eds.), 67-83. John Benjamins (original) (raw)

Number interacts with two distinct processes in language: Quantization and Individuation. In Individuation, an operation that maps a nominal concept to the individual objects that materialize it, the role of number is to provide a criterion of division mapping properties onto object instances. But contextual localization, we argue can provide an alternative criterion of division. That is, just as objects can be individuated through their properties or their location in space (Xu and Carey 1996), so, we propose, can Carlsonian kinds be mapped onto object level realizations through number division or spatial location. Languages opt for different modes of individuation a choice that has empirical consequences on nominal syntax and morphological number marking.