scholarly journals Quantity judgment studies in Yudja (Tupi): Acquisition and interpretation of nouns

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzi Lima
Keyword(s):  
Quantity Judgment

Quantity judgment and the mass-count distinction across languages: Advances, problems, and future directions for research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Barner ◽  
Alan Bale
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Quantity Judgment ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Linguistic Cognition

We review advances in the experimental study of the mass-count distinction and highlight problems that have emerged. First, we lay out what we see to be the scientific enterprise of studying the syntax and semantics of mass-count distinction, and the assumptions we believe must be made if additional progress is to occur, especially as the empirical facts continue to grow in number and complexity. Second, we discuss the new landscape of cross-linguistic results that has been created by widespread use of the quantity judgment task, and what these results tell us about the nature of the mass-count distinction. Finally, we discuss the relationship between the mass-count distinction and non-linguistic cognition, and in particular the object-substance distinction.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: Mutual influences between numerical and non-numerical quantities in comparison tasks

2020 ◽  
pp. 174702182098187
Author(s):  
Charlotte Hendryckx ◽  
Mathieu Guillaume ◽  
Anthony Beuel ◽  
Amandine Van Rinsveld ◽  
Alain Content
Keyword(s):  
Convex Hull ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Numerical Comparison ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Visual Integration ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Number Comparison ◽  
Quantity Judgment ◽  
Performance Results

Humans possess a numerical intuition that allows them to manipulate large non-symbolic quantities. This ability has been broadly assessed with the help of number comparison tasks involving simultaneously displayed arrays. Many authors pointed out that the manipulation (or the lack thereof) of non-numerical features deeply impacts performance in these tasks, but the specific nature of this influence is not clear. The current study investigates the interaction between numerical and non-numerical quantity judgment tasks. Adult participants performed five distinct comparison tasks, each based on a target dimension: numerosity, total area, dot size, convex hull, and mean occupancy. We manipulated the relation between the target and the other dimensions to measure their respective influence on task performance. Results showed that total area and convex hull substantially affected numerosity comparisons. The number of dots conversely acted as an informative dimension when participants had to make a decision based on the total area or the convex hull. Our results illustrate that adults flexibly use non-target dimensions as visual cues to perform comparison judgments. Overall, this suggests that the influence found in numerical comparison tasks is explicit and deliberate rather than due to implicit visual integration processes.

The count-mass distinction in Terena

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 382-397
Author(s):  
Luciana Sanchez-Mendes ◽  
Ana Paula Quadros Gomes ◽  
Aronaldo Julio
Keyword(s):  
Mass Nouns ◽  
Count Nouns ◽  
Quantity Judgment ◽  
Plural Marking ◽  
Initial Research

Abstract This paper examines the count-mass distinction in Terena (Aruák, Brazil) by focusing on plural marking availability, numeral and quantifier distribution and cardinal versus volume interpretation in quantity judgment tests. The data collected from the initial research of these features in Terena reveals the relevancy of the count-mass distinction in the language with some signature properties: (i) only count nouns can be directly combined with numerals; (ii) only count nouns can be used with the quantifier êno with the interpretarion of many individuals rather than a large quantity; and finally, (iii) only count nouns can express cardinality of individuals in a comparative sentence such as John has more N than Peter. Plural morpheme distribution is unsuitable for distinguishing count from mass nouns (such as in English) since mass nouns can be pluralized in Terena, provided noun denotations have individuals to allow for number rather than volume quantity interpretation.

scholarly journals Do Social Conditions Affect Capuchin Monkeys’ (Cebus apella) Choices in a Quantity Judgment Task?

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Beran ◽  
Bonnie M. Perdue ◽  
Audrey E. Parrish ◽  
Theodore A. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Cebus Apella ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Capuchin Monkeys ◽  
Quantity Judgment

Does Mass Count Anymore?

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-306
Author(s):  
Aviya Hacohen ◽  
Mostafa Qtit
Keyword(s):  
Research Program ◽  
Change Process ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Number Marking ◽  
Relative Paucity ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Quantity Judgment ◽  
Palestinian Arabic

The theoretical literature on the mass/count distinction in Palestinian-Arabic (PA) is extremely scarce, and the psycholinguistic perspective has never been explored. In this paper, we report results from an experiment exploring the mass/count distinction in 48 (aged 6;6–17;04) young and adult speakers of PA. Using an adaptation of Barner & Snedeker’s (2005) Quantity-Judgment task, we show that while PA-speaking adults are essentially identical to English-speaking adults, PA-speaking children behave dramatically different from both adult PA speakers and from English-acquiring children. We suggest that these results may reflect a process of language change currently taking place in PA. We further propose two possible sources for the process. The first involves the fact that the grammaticization of mass/count in PA is rather marginal, as indicated by the relative paucity of syntactic structures encoding the distinction. Alternatively, our data may reflect a change process involving a relaxation of obligatory number-marking in cardinality contexts. Finally, we outline a research-program aimed to test these hypotheses.

scholarly journals Who has more? The influence of linguistic form on quantity judgments

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Scontras ◽  
Kathryn Davidson ◽  
Amy Rose Deal ◽  
Sarah E. Murray
Keyword(s):  
English Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Linguistic Cues ◽  
Quantity Judgments ◽  
Quantity Judgment

Quantity judgment tasks have been increasingly used within and across languages as a diagnostic for noun semantics. Overwhelmingly, results show that notionally atomic nouns (Who has more cats?) are counted, while notionally non-atomic nouns (Who has more milk?) are measured by volume. There are two primary outliers to the strict atomicity-tracking pattern. First, some nouns, like furniture, show primarily cardinality-based results in some studies, indicating atomicity, but nevertheless show systematic non-cardinality judgments in other studies, with comparison based instead on value/utility. Second, it has been reported that speakers of the Amazonian language Yudja favor cardinality-based quantity comparison for all nouns regardless of notional atomicity. In the current study, we show that both of these patterns arise in naïve English speakers in the absence of clear linguistic cues to atomicity, and suggest that the absence or mis-diagnosis of linguistic cues may be behind the reported outliers to atomicity-tracking. 

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