The October 2020 issue of Linguistic Variation - number 20(2) - is a special issue devoted to the mass/count distinction in nouns across indigenous languages of Brazil.
Suzi Lima (faculty) and Susan Rothstein (Bar-Ilan University) are co-authors of the introductory paper: "A typology of the mass/count distinction in Brazil and its relevance for mass/count theories."
While much work has been done on the description of the mass/count distinction in different geographical areas, Brazilian Indigenous languages are still highly underrepresented in the field. This paper presents the results of a project that involved researchers describing the mass/count distinction in 15 Brazilian Indigenous languages, based on a questionnaire we prepared in 2016 in order to explore the distribution of bare nouns, plurals, numerals, and quantifiers. Three main observations will be drawn. First, number marking and countability are independent. Second, counting is not restricted to natural atoms. Third, since there seems to be no systematic symmetry in the distribution of plurals, numerals, and quantifiers, we argue that the standard diagnostics for countable versus non-countable nouns are highly language-specific.
Guillaume Thomas (faculty) also has a paper in this issue: "Countability in Mbyá."
This paper investigates the distribution of nouns in Mbyá (Tupi-Guarani), with respect to plural marking, numerals and quantifiers. The study reveals the existence of a robust grammatical distinction between a class of count nouns, which consists mostly of individual denoting nouns, and a class of mass nouns, which consists mostly of substance denoting nouns.
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