Turkish plural nouns are number-neutral: experimental data

Agata Renans; George Tsoulas; Raffaella Folli; Nihan Ketrez; Lyn Tieu; Hanna De Vries; Jacopo Romoli

Turkish plural nouns are number-neutral: experimental data

Agata Renans, George Tsoulas, Raffaella Folli, Nihan Ketrez, Lyn Tieu, Hanna De Vries, Jacopo Romoli

Language and Linguistic Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

Across languages, plural marking on a noun typically conveys that there is more thanone entity in the denotation of the noun. In English, this ‘more than one’ meaning isgenerally regarded as an implicature on top of a ‘semantically unmarked’/number-neutralliteral meaning of the plural noun ([10, 18, 20]; see also [5, 12]). In Turkish, however, it iscontroversial whether plural nouns should be analysed as number-neutral or whether theyshould directly denote strict plurality [2, 19, 6]. This debate is important as it can shedlight on the meanings number marking can have across languages, thereby constrainingcross-linguistically adequate theories of the semantics of number. We tested Turkish-speaking adults and 4–6-year-old children on the interpretation of plurals in upward- anddownward-entailing contexts, as compared to the ‘not all’ scalar inference ofbazı‘some’.The results of our experiment support a theory of plural nouns which includes a number-neutral interpretation.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium
Editors	Alexander Cremers, Thom van Gessel, Floris Roelofsen
Pages	365-375
Number of pages	10
Publication status	Published - 2017

Access to Document

AC_2017_Renans_et_alFinal published version, 550 KB

Cite this

@inproceedings{6d1a52397b3b4abd9e0ab7f6fc90bb44,

title = "Turkish plural nouns are number-neutral: experimental data",

abstract = "Across languages, plural marking on a noun typically conveys that there is more thanone entity in the denotation of the noun. In English, this {\textquoteleft}more than one{\textquoteright} meaning isgenerally regarded as an implicature on top of a {\textquoteleft}semantically unmarked{\textquoteright}/number-neutralliteral meaning of the plural noun ([10, 18, 20]; see also [5, 12]). In Turkish, however, it iscontroversial whether plural nouns should be analysed as number-neutral or whether theyshould directly denote strict plurality [2, 19, 6]. This debate is important as it can shedlight on the meanings number marking can have across languages, thereby constrainingcross-linguistically adequate theories of the semantics of number. We tested Turkish-speaking adults and 4–6-year-old children on the interpretation of plurals in upward- anddownward-entailing contexts, as compared to the {\textquoteleft}not all{\textquoteright} scalar inference ofbazı{\textquoteleft}some{\textquoteright}.The results of our experiment support a theory of plural nouns which includes a number-neutral interpretation.",

author = "Agata Renans and George Tsoulas and Raffaella Folli and Nihan Ketrez and Lyn Tieu and {De Vries}, Hanna and Jacopo Romoli",

year = "2017",

language = "English",

pages = "365--375",

editor = "Cremers, {Alexander } and {van Gessel}, Thom and Floris Roelofsen",

booktitle = "Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium",

}

TY - GEN

T1 - Turkish plural nouns are number-neutral: experimental data

AU - Renans, Agata

AU - Tsoulas, George

AU - Folli, Raffaella

AU - Ketrez, Nihan

AU - Tieu, Lyn

AU - De Vries, Hanna

AU - Romoli, Jacopo

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Across languages, plural marking on a noun typically conveys that there is more thanone entity in the denotation of the noun. In English, this ‘more than one’ meaning isgenerally regarded as an implicature on top of a ‘semantically unmarked’/number-neutralliteral meaning of the plural noun ([10, 18, 20]; see also [5, 12]). In Turkish, however, it iscontroversial whether plural nouns should be analysed as number-neutral or whether theyshould directly denote strict plurality [2, 19, 6]. This debate is important as it can shedlight on the meanings number marking can have across languages, thereby constrainingcross-linguistically adequate theories of the semantics of number. We tested Turkish-speaking adults and 4–6-year-old children on the interpretation of plurals in upward- anddownward-entailing contexts, as compared to the ‘not all’ scalar inference ofbazı‘some’.The results of our experiment support a theory of plural nouns which includes a number-neutral interpretation.

AB - Across languages, plural marking on a noun typically conveys that there is more thanone entity in the denotation of the noun. In English, this ‘more than one’ meaning isgenerally regarded as an implicature on top of a ‘semantically unmarked’/number-neutralliteral meaning of the plural noun ([10, 18, 20]; see also [5, 12]). In Turkish, however, it iscontroversial whether plural nouns should be analysed as number-neutral or whether theyshould directly denote strict plurality [2, 19, 6]. This debate is important as it can shedlight on the meanings number marking can have across languages, thereby constrainingcross-linguistically adequate theories of the semantics of number. We tested Turkish-speaking adults and 4–6-year-old children on the interpretation of plurals in upward- anddownward-entailing contexts, as compared to the ‘not all’ scalar inference ofbazı‘some’.The results of our experiment support a theory of plural nouns which includes a number-neutral interpretation.

UR - https://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/12f840d2-c495-42fa-91be-deb9ef3c3b79

M3 - Conference contribution

SP - 365

EP - 375

BT - Proceedings of the 21st Amsterdam Colloquium

A2 - Cremers, Alexander

A2 - van Gessel, Thom

A2 - Roelofsen, Floris

ER -

Turkish plural nouns are number-neutral: experimental data

Abstract

Access to Document

Other files and links

Cite this