The Singular/Plural Contrast in Japanese: Nominal Mapping in Classifier Languages

Japanese noun phrases are not morphologically inflected for singular/plural contrast. However, the language employs several optional plural markers. This paper argues that while Japanese lacks morphological singular/plural distinctions, the distinction is reflected semantically, as plural markers can only attach to count nouns. Additionally, the most productive plural marker, -tati, is found to be exclusively associative. This finding supports the nominal mapping hypothesis proposed by Chierchia (1998a, 1998b, 2010), indicating that Japanese does not serve as a counterexample to the framework.