CLASP
The Centre for Linguistic Theory and Studies in Probability

A probabilistic, mereological account of the mass/count distinction

In this paper, we attempt to answer the vexing question why it should be the case that only certain types of noun meanings exhibit mass/count variation in the lexicalization of their semantic properties, while others do not. This question has so far remained unanswered, or been set aside. We will do so by focusing on the role of context-sensitivity (already highlighted in recent theories of the mass/count distinction), and argue that it gives rise to a conflict between two pressures that influence the encoding of noun meanings as mass or count, one stemming from learnability constraints (reliability) and the other from constraints on informativeness (individuation). This will also lead us to identifying four semantic classes of nouns, and to showing why variation in mass/count encoding is, on our account, to be expected to occur widely in just two of them. Context-sensitivity forces a choice between prioritizing individuation, which aligns with count lexicalization, and prioritizing consistency, which aligns with mass lexicalization.