Turkish plural nouns are number-neutral: experimental data (original) (raw)
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Plurality and crosslinguistic variation: an experimental investigation of the Turkish plural
National Language Semantics, 2020
In English and many other languages, the interpretation of the plural is associated with an 'exclusive' reading in positive sentences and an 'inclusive' reading in negative ones. For example, the plural noun tulips in a sentence such as Chicken planted tulips suggests that Chicken planted more than one tulip (i.e., a reading which 'excludes' atomic individual tulips). At the same time, however, the corresponding negative sentence Chicken didn't plant tulips doesn't merely convey that he didn't plant more than one tulip, but rather that he didn't plant any tulip (i.e.,().,-volV) (0123456789().,-volV) 'including' atomic individual tulips). Different approaches to the meaning contribution of the English plural vary in how they account for this alternation across the polarities, but converge on assuming that (at least one of) the denotation(s) of the plural should include atomic individuals. Turkish, on the other hand, is cited as one of the few known languages in which the plural only receives an exclusive interpretation (e.g., Bale et al. Cross-linguistic representations of numerals and number marking. in: Li, Lutz (eds) Semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) 20, CLC Publications, Ithaca, pp 582-598, 2010). More recent proposals have, however, argued that the Turkish plural should in fact be analysed more like the English plural (e.g., Sag, The semantics of number marking: reference to kinds, counting, and optional classifiers, PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, 2019). We report two experiments investigating Turkish-speaking adults' and preschool-aged children's interpretation of positive and negative sentences containing plural nouns. The results provide clear evidence for inclusive interpretations of the plural in Turkish, supporting accounts that treat the Turkish and English plurals alike. We briefly discuss how an inclusive meaning of the Turkish plural can be integrated within a theory of the Turkish number system which captures some idiosyncratic properties of the singular and the agreement between number and number numerals.
A Contrastive Analysis of English and Turkish Plural Markers
International Journal of English Linguistics, 2016
This morphophonemic study aims to analyze pluralization processes for common nouns in English and native Turkish. To achieve this, a contrastive analysis focusing on English and Turkish plural markers from a structuralist point of view is taken. The results of the analysis reveal the differences and similarities between two languages in terms of plural markers. As for the differences, it is found that English and Turkish differ in regular and irregular plural forms as well as active role of consonants and vowels for pluralization process. Similarities for plural markers include focusing on the final sound of nouns, relying on distinctive features of sounds, employing allomorphs and using plural markers as suffixes for both languages to a varying degree. The findings of this study might help learners of English and Turkish by revealing the differences and similarities in both languages.
Testing theories of plural meanings: Insights from child language (Jul. 2017)
Plural morphology in English is associated with a multiplicity inference, e.g., "Emily fed giraffes" is typically interpreted to mean that Emily fed more than one giraffe. It has long been observed that this inference disappears in downward-entailing linguistic environments, such as in the scope of negation. There are two main approaches to this puzzle: the first proposes that the plural is ambiguous, and invokes a preference for stronger meanings (Farkas & de Swart 2010), while the second derives multiplicity inferences as implicatures (Spector 2007; Zweig 2009; Ivlieva 2013; Mayr 2015). In this paper, we report on two experiments comparing how adults and preschool-aged children interpret plural morphology. The first experiment reveals that both adults and 4–5-year-old English-speaking children compute more multiplicity inferences in upward-entailing environments than in downward-entailing environments, and moreover that children compute fewer multiplicity inferences than adults. The second experiment tested a new group of participants on both multiplicity inferences and the upper-bound scalar implicature of the quantifier "some". Again, both groups computed more multiplicity inferences in upward-entailing than in downward-entailing environments. More importantly, children computed fewer multiplicity inferences and scalar implicatures than adults, and their performance on the two kinds of inferences was significantly correlated. We discuss how the findings of the two experiments support a scalar implicature approach to multiplicity inferences, while posing a challenge for the ambiguity approach.
This paper presents new empirical evidence from Marori (a Papuan language of Southern New Guinea) for the semantics of number in a complex number system. Marori has a basic three-way number system, singular/dual/plural. Marori is notable for showing distributed number exponence and constructed number strategies, in sharp contrast with familiar two-way, morphologically simpler number systems in languages such as English. Unlike in English, the reference of plurals in Marori in many contexts is to a group of three or more individuals. While Marori's number system is typologically quite different from English, it shows an intriguing similarity in that in certain contexts, plural/nonsingular forms allow an inclusive reading (i.e. reference to any number of individuals, including one). The paper also presents evidence that all number types, including constructed dual, can be used for generic reference. The paper concludes with remarks on the theoretical significance of our findings.
On the number system and the count/mass distinction in Turkish
2010
The main objective of this paper is to investigate the nominal system of Turkish with particular reference to number. Following Schroeder (1999) and Corbett (2000), I will propose that bare nominals in Turkish come out of the lexicon are number-neutral. In other words, the ...