性の多様性を表す語彙：少数派の名づけと名乗り(2021) (original) (raw)

Count/Mass Distinction in Japanese Nouns : A Contrastive Approach

2007

It is widely assumed that nouns in Chinese/Japanese-type languages are mass nouns because they lack plural morphemes and indefinite articles (Chierchia 1998). In this paper, I disagree with this view and claim that Japanese also makes a distinction between count and mass by showing that the distinction manifests in numeral-noun combinations ("heitai hyaku": 100 soldiers vs. "*sekiyu hyaku": *100 oils) and quantificational expressions, e.g. "tasuu" ("tasuu-no kuruma": many cars vs. "*tasuu-no tetsu": "many iron). Many philosophers and linguists have discussed the question of whether the count/mass distinction is derived semantically or syntactically, i.e. whether it is determined by the ontology (individual/object → count; stuff → mass) or by language specific forms (count → individual/object; mass → stuff). If it were true that Japanese has only mass nouns then it would be just a mysterious coincidence that there are languages w...