Abstract
Two experiments examined English speakers’ choices of count or mass compatible frames for nouns varying in imageability (concrete, abstract) and noun class (count, mass). Pairing preferences with equative (much/many) and non-equative (less/fewer) constructions were compared for groups of teenagers, young adults, and older adults. Deviations from normative usage were, for all ages, larger for count than for mass nouns, for the non-equative than for the equative construction, and for abstract count than for concrete count nouns. These results indicate that mass syntax is not a developmental default, support proposals that mass syntax is more flexible than count syntax, verify the non-prescriptive use of less with count nouns, and extend the interaction of syntax and semantics in noun classification to older ages, with older adults showing a reduced reliance on semantics. Knowledge of frame compatibility and knowledge of noun class are also shown to be largely independent.
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A preliminary version of this work was presented in part at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
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Raymond, W.D., Healy, A.F. & McDonnel, S.J. Pairing Words with Syntactic Frames: Syntax, Semantics, and Count-Mass Usage. J Psycholinguist Res 40, 327 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-011-9172-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-011-9172-4