Concepts of objects and substances in language

• Published in: Psychonomic bulletin & review Vol. 26; no. 4; pp. 1238 - 1256
• Main Authors: Rips, Lance J., Hespos, Susan J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cats; Cognitive Psychology; Humans; Infant; Language; Language Development; Linguistics; Ontology; Psychology; Semantics; Theoretical Review; Vocabulary; Concepts; Substance concepts; Object concepts; Mass and count nouns
• ISSN: 1069-9384; 1531-5320
• DOI: 10.3758/s13423-019-01613-w

People distinguish objects from the substances that constitute them. Many languages also distinguish count nouns and mass nouns. What is the relation between these two distinctions? The connection between them is complicated by the facts that (a) some mass nouns (e.g., toast ) seem to name countable objects; (b) some count and mass nouns (e.g., pots and pottery ) seem to name the same objects; (c) nouns for seemingly the same things can be count in one language (English: dishes ) but mass in another (French: la vaisselle ); (d) count nouns can be used to name substances ( There is carrot in the soup ) and mass nouns to name portions ( She drank three whiskeys ); and (e) some languages (e.g., Mandarin) appear to have no count nouns, whereas others (e.g., Yudja) appear to have no mass nouns. All these cases counter a simple object-to-count-noun and substance-to-mass-noun relation, but they provide opportunities to see whether the grammatical distinction affects the referential one. We examine evidence from such cases and find continuity through development: Infants appear to have the conceptual OBJECT/SUBSTANCE distinction very early on. Although this distinction may change with development, the acquisition of count/mass syntax does not appear to be an effective factor for change.