Cover not available

In:Mass and Count in Linguistics, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science
Edited by Friederike Moltmann
[Language Faculty and Beyond 16] 2020
► pp. 141–158

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Comparatives in Brazilian Portuguese

Counting and measuring

 | Bar-Ilan University
 | Universidade Federal do Paraná | CNPq
Published online: 17 December 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/lfab.16.07rot
Abstract
Comparatives in Brazilian Portuguese show that Bale and Barner’s (2009) generalizations do not hold cross-linguistically; this leads to reconsidering the role of cardinality in mass and count syntax. The paper discusses contrasts in the use of naturally atomic, or object, mass nouns in Brazilian Portuguese and English. Brazilian Portuguese has a productive bare singular, which is analysed, following Pires de Oliveira and Rothstein (2011) as an object mass noun with a count counterpart. However, in comparative constructions it does not behave as Bale and Barner predict. We give an account of the relation between counting and measuring which explains the data and we show, using data from Hungarian, that the contrasts with English are not unique to Brazilian Portuguese.
Article outline
  • 1. Bale and Barner (2009)
  • 2.Brazilian Portuguese bare singular
  • 3.Naturally atomic (object) mass nouns in English
  • 4. Hungarian
  • 5.Theoretical analysis
  • 6.Flexible nouns: English and Brazilian Portuguese
  • 7.Summary
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (18)
References
Bale, A., & Barner, D. (2009). The interpretation of functional heads: Using comparatives to explore the mass/count distinction. Journal of Semantics, 26, 217–252. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barner, D., & Snedeker, J. (2005). Quantity judgements and individuation: Evidence that mass nouns count. Cognition, 97, 41–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Borer, H. (2005). Structuring Sense, Part I: In name only. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chierchia, G. (1998). Plurality of mass nouns and the notion of 'semantic parameter. In S. Rothstein (Ed.), Events and Grammar (pp. 53–103). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Mass Nouns, Vagueness and Semantic Variatio. Synthese, 174, 99–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grimm, S., & Levin, B. (2012). ‘Who has more furniture?’ An exploration of the bases for comparison. Paper presented at the Paris Colloquium on Mass/Count in Linguistics, Philosophy and Cognitive Science. École Normale Supérieure , Paris, December 20–21, 2012.
Landman, F. (2010). Count nouns – mass nouns – neat nouns – mess nouns. The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, 6. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, X., & Rothstein, S. (2012). Measure readings of Mandarin classifier phrases and the particle de . Language and Linguistics, 13(4), 693–741.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lima, S. (2014). On the grammar of individuation and counting (Ph. D. Dissertation). UMass Amherst.
Pires de Oliveira, R., & Rothstein, S. (2011). Bare nouns in are mass in Brazilian Portuguese. Lingua, 121, 2153–2175. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pires de Oliveira, R., & Mendes de Souza, L. (2013). O singular nu e a comparação: uma proposta de derivação semântica. Revista LinguíStica. 9(1).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothstein, S. (2010). Counting and the mass-count distinction. Journal of Semantics, 27(3), 343–397. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011). Counting, measuring and the semantics of classifiers. The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication. 6. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Semantics for counting and measuring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(to appear). Counting, measuring and approximation. In H. Filip (Ed.), Counting and measuring in natural language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schmitt, C., & Munn, A. (1999). Against the nominal mapping parameter: bare nouns in Brazilian Portuguese. Proceedings of NELS 29 .
Schvarcz, B., & Rothstein, S. (2017). Hungarian classifier constructions and the mass/count distinction. In A. Liptak, & H. van der Hulst (Eds.), Approaches to Hungarian 15 (pp. 183–209). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwarzschild, R. (2011). Stubborn distributivity, multiparticipant nouns and the count/mass distinction. In Lima, S, Mullin, K., & Smith, B. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 39) (Vol. 2, pp. 661–978). Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Kleineberg, Désirée & Wiltrud Mihatsch
2025. Diachronic evidence for Spanish object mass nouns as a peripheral category. In The Diachrony of Word Class Peripheries [Studies in Language Companion Series, 238], ► pp. 17 ff. DOI logo
Mihatsch, Wiltrud & Désirée Kleineberg
2024. The Interaction of Morphosyntax and Semantics in Romance Object Mass Nouns. In Nouns and the Morphosyntax / Semantics Interface, ► pp. 153 ff. DOI logo
Pires de Oliveira, Roberta
2023. Ways of Number Marking: English and Brazilian Portuguese. In Formal Approaches to Languages of South America, ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Huang, Aijun, Jingjing Li & Luisa Meroni
2022. Grammatical and contextual factors affecting the interpretation of superordinate collectives in child and adult Mandarin. Linguistics 60:4 ► pp. 933 ff. DOI logo
Dellai, Érica Milani, Vitória Maria Jasper Ern, Léia de Jesus Silva, Roberta Pires de Oliveira, Beatriz Martins Rachadel & Bianca Maria de Souza
2021. A distinção massa e contável na gramática Rikbaktsa (Macro-Jê). LIAMES: Línguas Indígenas Americanas 21 ► pp. e021007 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue