Object-mass nouns specify individuation lexically: Evidence from English and French

In many languages, words in count syntax quantify over countable individuals (e.g., too many strings), while mass nouns often don’t (e.g., too much string). Theories differ in how they characterize nouns that violate this pattern, such as object-mass nouns (e.g. furniture, clothing). These nouns exhibit mass syntax, but often quantify by number (Barner & Snedeker, 2005). On one hypothesis, the individuation of object-mass nouns is lexically specified, making them semantically like count nouns in that they induce a comparison by number (Bale & Barner, 2009). Others argue that, while count nouns always quantify by number, object-mass nouns have different quantification criteria depending on context (Rothstein, 2010), including function fulfillment (McCawley, 1975). We evaluated these hypotheses by comparing English quantity judgments for object-mass nouns to (1) English judgments for collective count nouns, and (2) French judgments for translations of object-mass nouns. In each case, we found that object-mass nouns behaved like count nouns, and were no more susceptible to contextual effects. These findings support the view that object-mass nouns and count nouns specify individuation to the same extent. We highlight implications for theories about how the mass–count distinction is acquired, and how it arises in languages.