DOCSLIB.ORG

Collective Nouns in English Used in Sweden a Corpus-Based Study on Number Concord with Collective Nouns

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Collective Nouns in English Used in Sweden a Corpus-Based Study on Number Concord with Collective Nouns School of Language and Literature English Linguistics G3, Bachelor's Course Supervisor: Mikko Laitinen Course Code: 2EN10E Examiner: Christopher Allen Credits: 15 Date: 17 January 2014 Collective nouns in English used in Sweden A corpus-based study on number concord with collective nouns Petra Örlegård Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how Swedes writing in English construct number concord with collective nouns. This was done by studying three primary corpora: the Swedish English Newspaper Corpus (SWENC) and the press sections of Frown (American English) and F-LOB (British English). The findings were compared with the results in the Blogs in English by Swedes Corpus (BESC), Frown (American English) and F-LOB (British English). The SWENC contains texts from three online newspapers and one corporate newsletter in English, all of which are written by Swedes. The BESC contains texts from Swedes blogging in English. Frown and F-LOB contain texts from fifteen text genres in the 1990s. The results in the SWENC are discussed and compared with the press sections of F-LOB and Frown. The results are also compared with the BESC, Frown and F-LOB in order to see whether there is regional and stylistic variation. The results show that Swedes prefer singular verbal concord with collective nouns even though plural forms occur which seem to be closer to F-LOB Press (BrE) than Frown Press (AmE). In contrast, the SWENC differs from the press sections of Frown and F-LOB in constructing pronominal number. This difference could be influenced by Swedish usage which allows both singular and plural pronominal number with collective nouns. The study also shows that plural forms of political parties that seem to constitute collective units show variation in Sweden whereas such nouns take only plural concord in both American and British English. Keywords: agreement, American English, British English, collective nouns, concord, corpus, news genre, plurality, singularity, Sweden Petra Örlegård Table of contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Collective nouns and concord 3 2.1 Variation in number concord with collective nouns 3 2.2 Proper nouns that constitute collective nouns 5 2.3 Factors which affect agreement 6 2.4 Previous studies on agreement with collective nouns 9 3 Materials and methods 11 4 Results 14 4.1 Findings in the SWENC, F-LOB Press and Frown Press 14 4.2 Comparison of the news genre with the BESC, F-LOB and Frown 19 4.2.1 Comparison of the political parties with the plural forms of political parties 21 4.3 Discussion of the findings with previous findings 23 5 Conclusion 25 References 26 Appendix 28 Petra Örlegård 1 Introduction This thesis deals with collective nouns, more specifically with how Swedish journalists construct their choices of verbal and pronominal number with collective nouns. Collective nouns can be used with singular or plural agreement, as in illustrations (1) and (2). (1) In 2008 the couple were in trouble with the police. (Swedish Wire in the SWENC) (2) While Malmö resident Philipp Marra moved to Sweden about a decade ago simply because his partner got a job there, the couple has stayed on. (The Local in the SWENC) Arguably, in prescriptive grammar, a singular verb goes with a singular noun and a plural noun takes a plural verb. Collective nouns are, however, singular in form but plural in meaning as they denote “a group of people or animals or /…/ institutions” (Greenbaum, 1996:103). In fact, collective nouns can either constitute a group acting as a unit or a group acting as individuals. According to Collins Cobuild English Grammar (1990:37), a singular verb is used when the collective noun is thought of as a unit whereas the plural verb is used when the collective noun is thought of as a number of entities. Consequently, number concord varies. Leech, Deuchar and Hoogenraad (2006:190) discuss this problem of number concord with collective nouns. They argue that one needs to distinguish grammatical concord from notional concord. Grammatical concord refers to prescriptive grammar and syntactic agreement, i.e. verbal and pronominal agreement is based on the number of the noun. Notional concord, on the other hand, follows semantic agreement, i.e. variation in agreement with collective nouns that is based on the semantic meaning of the collective, e.g. whether it acts as a single unit or as a group of individuals (ibid). Levin (2001:159) discusses this in his doctoral dissertation and claims that there are a number of functional factors, e.g. syntactic, semantic and stylistic factors, behind the variable usage of number verbs with collective nouns. However, plural concord with collective nouns is “common enough in speech, but still tend to be frowned on in serious writing” (Leech et al, 2006:190). Therefore, Leech et al (2006) claim that singular concord is more frequent in writing than in speech. Concord with collective nouns is assumed to be problematic for both native and non- native speakers of English (Levin, 1998; Bauer, 1994:61fff). These problems are brought about by the fact that there is regional variation, e.g. American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) (Levin, 2001:60; Biber et al, 1999:19), and by the fact that there is variation 1 within the group of collective nouns, e.g. government has a political reference whereas family refers to a number of people within a family. Not only that, there is variation as regards to which pronoun is used when a singular verb co-occurs with a collective noun (Aremo, 2003), as in illustrations (3) and (4) below. (3) The family is not happy in their house. (Invented example) (4) The government has to make its decision on Sunday. (Invented example) Even if a singular verb is used in both examples, the pronoun number varies. In addition, collective nouns in AmE prefer to take singular verbs and pronouns, though plural pronouns are also possible, e.g. with couple (Quirk et al, 1985:759), whereas the selection is clearly different in BrE: both singular and plural verbs and pronouns are possible with collective nouns (Levin, 2001:160). Levin (2001:159) however observes that plural forms of pronouns are equally common in both AmE and BrE in spoken English. Based on the fact that there clearly is variation in number concord with collective nouns in English, e.g. regional differences, differences between spoken and written English and between nouns, the Swedish perspective thus makes an interesting study. This thesis will therefore investigate whether the frequencies of verbal and pronominal number with collective nouns in the Swedish corpus show variation. Furthermore, this thesis will explore which factors affect the concord with collective nouns. The aim of this study is to explore the choice of concord with collective nouns. This is done through a corpus study which examines if there is variation in usage and if Swedish journalists are consistent when choosing number verbs and pronouns with collective nouns. The findings from the corpus will be analysed in order to find out whether concord with collective nouns is based on various linguistic factors as explored in Levin (2001) or on grammatical concord, i.e. singular pronouns and verbs. Levin (2001:53) argues that there are stylistic factors that affect number agreement and it is assumed that different genres show stylistic differences. This thesis will thus compare the news genre with blog texts to see if there are stylistic differences that could have affected concord. Moreover, this thesis will look at whether there is variation based on which collective noun is involved. The collective nouns that will be analysed are presented in Table 1 on page 3 and are taken from earlier research as well as English grammar books. In addition to the list of collective nouns, proper nouns that constitute collectives will be looked into and they include the names of corporations and organizations like IKEA, BBC, the UN, SAAB, VOLVO and SAS. The names of political parties are also included. Investigating the abovementioned problems will include the following aspects: 2 1. Do Swedish journalists follow the American English variety, the British English one or a mixture of both in verbal and pronominal concord with collective nouns? 2. Which number concord occurs more frequently with collective nouns in texts written in English by Swedish journalists? 3. How consistent are Swedish journalists writing in English in selecting the number verb and pronoun with collective nouns? Table 1. List of collective nouns. Army Assembly Association Audience Board Class Club Commission Committee Community Company Congress Corporation Council Couple Crew Crowd Department Family Faculty Gang Government Group Jury Navy Majority Management Military Minority Office Organisation (z) Parliament Party Population Senate Society Staff Team The press The public The state In order to answer the abovementioned questions, this thesis will have the following structure: Section 2 provides a background on concord and discusses variation in number concord, proper nouns that constitute collective nouns and factors that affect variation in agreement. The changes of number agreement during the twentieth century and the tendencies of AmE and BrE will also be discussed here. Section 3 discusses the materials and methods used for this thesis. The results of the study are then presented and discussed in section 4 and finally, section 5 provides conclusions and suggestions to future studies. 2 Collective nouns and concord 2.1 Variation in number concord with collective nouns Many researchers observe that there is variation in agreement with collective nouns in English (Biber et al, 1999:20; Aremo, 2003; Levin, 2001:30). For instance, collective nouns are used with both singular and plural concord and this variation is more noticeable in BrE (Biber et al, 1999:188; Levin, 2001:37).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Animacy and Alienability: a Reconsideration of English
    Running head: ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 1 Animacy and Alienability A Reconsideration of English Possession Jaimee Jones A Senior Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation in the Honors Program Liberty University Spring 2016 ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 2 Acceptance of Senior Honors Thesis This Senior Honors Thesis is accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the Honors Program of Liberty University. ______________________________ Jaeshil Kim, Ph.D. Thesis Chair ______________________________ Paul Müller, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Jeffrey Ritchey, Ph.D. Committee Member ______________________________ Brenda Ayres, Ph.D. Honors Director ______________________________ Date ANIMACY AND ALIENABILITY 3 Abstract Current scholarship on English possessive constructions, the s-genitive and the of- construction, largely ignores the possessive relationships inherent in certain English compound nouns. Scholars agree that, in general, an animate possessor predicts the s- genitive while an inanimate possessor predicts the of-construction. However, the current literature rarely discusses noun compounds, such as the table leg, which also express possessive relationships. However, pragmatically and syntactically, a compound cannot be considered as a true possessive construction. Thus, this paper will examine why some compounds still display possessive semantics epiphenomenally. The noun compounds that imply possession seem to exhibit relationships prototypical of inalienable possession such as body part, part whole, and spatial relationships. Additionally, the juxtaposition of the possessor and possessum in the compound construction is reminiscent of inalienable possession in other languages. Therefore, this paper proposes that inalienability, a phenomenon not thought to be relevant in English, actually imbues noun compounds whose components exhibit an inalienable relationship with possessive semantics.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles: ALAOTSIKKO
    1 Introduction to Case, animacy and semantic roles Please cite this paper as: Kittilä, Seppo, Katja Västi and Jussi Ylikoski. (2011) Introduction to case, animacy and semantic roles. In: Kittilä, Seppo, Katja Västi & Jussi Ylikoski (Eds.), Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles, 1-26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Seppo Kittilä Katja Västi Jussi Ylikoski University of Helsinki University of Oulu University of Helsinki University of Helsinki 1. Introduction Case, animacy and semantic roles and different combinations thereof have been the topic of numerous studies in linguistics (see e.g. Næss 2003; Kittilä 2008; de Hoop & de Swart 2008 among numerous others). The current volume adds to this list. The focus of the chapters in this volume lies on the effects that animacy has on the use and interpretation of cases and semantic roles. Each of the three concepts discussed in this volume can also be seen as somewhat problematic and not always easy to define. First, as noted by Butt (2006: 1), we still have not reached a full consensus on what case is and how it differs, for example, from 2 the closely related concept of adpositions. Second, animacy, as the label is used in linguistics, does not fully correspond to a layperson’s concept of animacy, which is probably rather biology-based (see e.g. Yamamoto 1999 for a discussion of the concept of animacy). The label can therefore, if desired, be seen as a misnomer. Lastly, semantic roles can be considered one of the most notorious labels in linguistics, as has been recently discussed by Newmeyer (2010). There is still no full consensus on how the concept of semantic roles is best defined and what would be the correct or necessary number of semantic roles necessary for a full description of languages.
    [Show full text]
  • Verbal Agreement with Collective Nominal Constructions: Syntactic and Semantic Determinants
    ATLANTIS Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 39.1 (June 2017): 33-54 issn 0210-6124 | e-issn 1989-6840 Verbal Agreement with Collective Nominal Constructions: Syntactic and Semantic Determinants Yolanda Fernández-Pena Universidade de Vigo [email protected] This corpus-based study investigates the patterns of verbal agreement of twenty-three singular collective nouns which take of-dependents (e.g., a group of boys, a set of points). The main goal is to explore the influence exerted by theof -PP on verb number. To this end, syntactic factors, such as the plural morphology of the oblique noun (i.e., the noun in the of- PP) and syntactic distance, as well as semantic issues, such as the animacy or humanness of the oblique noun within the of-PP, were analysed. The data show the strongly conditioning effect of plural of-dependents on the number of the verb: they favour a significant proportion of plural verbal forms. This preference for plural verbal patterns, however, diminishes considerably with increasing syntactic distance when the of-PP contains a non-overtly- marked plural noun such as people. The results for the semantic issues explored here indicate that animacy and humanness are also relevant factors as regards the high rate of plural agreement observed in these constructions. Keywords: agreement; collective; of-PP; distance; animacy; corpus . Concordancia verbal con construcciones nominales colectivas: sintaxis y semántica como factores determinantes Este estudio de corpus investiga los patrones de concordancia verbal de veintitrés nombres colectivos singulares que toman complementos seleccionados por la preposición of, como en los ejemplos a group of boys, a set of points.
    [Show full text]
  • Names a Person, Place, Thing, Or an Idea. A. Common Noun – Names Any One of a Group of Persons, Places, Things, Or Ideas
    Name: __________________________________________ Block: ______ English II: Price 1. Noun – names a person, place, thing, or an idea. a. Common noun – names any one of a group of persons, places, things, or ideas. b. Proper noun – names a particular person, place, thing, or idea. c. Compound noun – consists of two or more words that together name a person, place, thing, or idea. d. Concrete noun – names a person, place, thing that can be perceived by one or more of the senses. e. Abstract noun – names an idea, a feeling, a quality, or a characteristic. f. Collective noun – names a group of people, animals, or things. 2. Pronoun – takes the place of one or more nouns or pronouns. a. Antecedent – the word or word group that a pronoun stands for. b. Personal pronouns – refers to the one(s) speaking (first person), the one(s) spoken to (second person), or the one(s) spoken about (third person). Singular Plural First person I, me, my, mine We, us, our, ours Second person You, your, yours You, your, yours Third person He, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its They, them, their, theirs c. Case Forms of Personal Pronouns – form that a pronoun takes to show its relationship to other words in a sentence. Case Forms of Personal Pronouns Nominative Case Objective Case Possessive Case Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural First Person I We Me Us My, mine Our, ours Second Person You You You You Your, yours Your, yours Third Person He, she, it they Him her it them His, her, hers, its Their, theirs d.
    [Show full text]
  • A Set-Based Semantics for Obviation and Animacy
    A set-based semantics for obviation and animacy Christopher Hammerly – University of Minnesota Preprint Draft 1.0 – March 22nd, 2021 Abstract This paper provides an analysis of the semantics of obviation and animacy through a case study of Ojibwe (Central Algonquian). I develop a lattice-based characterization of possi- ble person, obviation, and animacy categories, showing that the addition of two binary features, [±Proximate] and [±Animate], captures the six-way distinction of Ojibwe. These features denote first-order predicates formed from subsets of an ontology of person primitives, with composition and interpretation defined by (i) the functional sequence of the nominal spine, (ii) the denotation of feature values, and (iii) the theory of contrastive interpretations. I show that alternative ac- counts based in lattice actions or feature geometries cannot capture the partition of Ojibwe, and offer extensions of the proposed system to noun classification in Zapotec, Romance, and Bantu. Keywords: obviation, animacy, person, noun classification, gender, '-features 1 Introduction Languages show constrained, but rich, variation in how categories related to person are distin- guished and conflated. At the core of all person systems is the possibility to refer to the author of an utterance, the addressee, and various non-participants — all languages, and indeed all humans, appear to have access to these fundamental concepts. The major point of variation is how these concepts are accessed, encoded, and manipulated by the grammar. The view taken in this paper is that the author, addressee, and others are PRIMITIVES of a mental ontology that is manipulated and accessed by morphosyntactic FEATURES. These features, in turn, give rise to CATEGORIES that allow reference to the primitives.
    [Show full text]
  • Collective Nouns Collective Nouns Are Names for a Collection Or a Number of People Or Things
    10/27/2018 What is a Collective Noun? Examples & Exercises | Ginger (//www.gingersoftware.com/) Grammar Rules << Back to Nouns (https://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/) Collective Nouns Collective nouns are names for a collection or a number of people or things. Words like group, herd, and array are collective noun examples. Here, we’ll take a closer look at collective nouns, and provide even more examples, placing them in context so you can gain a greater understanding of how they work. What is a Collective Noun You might not know it, but you encounter collective nouns in everyday speech. Collective nouns are words for single things that are made up of more than one person, animal, place, thing, or idea. You can’t have a team without individual members; even so, we discuss a team as a single entity. Collective Noun Examples Remember that nouns (http://www.gingersoftware.com/content/grammar-rules/nouns/) are words naming people, animals, places, and things. Collective nouns are in a class all their own. Once you’ve read these examples, you’ll find it much easier to recognize collective nouns when you see them. Our class took a field trip to the natural history museum. The herd of bison ran across the prairie, leaving a massive dust cloud in its wake. We waited anxiously for the jury to come to a verdict. This year’s basketball team includes three players who are over six feet tall. Napoleon’s army was finally defeated at Waterloo. The town council has approved plans to create a new park.
    [Show full text]
  • Full and Null Pronouns in Spanish: the Zero Pronoun Hypothesis
    Full and Null Pronouns in Spanish: the Zero Pronoun Hypothesis*. Luis Alonso-Ovalle & Francesco D’Introno University of Massachusetts at Amherst 1. The Puzzle Montalbetti (1984) points out certain semantic differences between phonetically full and phonetically empty pronouns (henceforth full and null pronouns) that challenge the traditional interpretive parallelism between empty and full categories (see Chomsky 1981, 1982). He shows that both in subject (1) and object position (2), while null pronouns can be interpreted as bound variables (as in (1a) and (2a) ), full pronouns cannot (as in (1c) and (2c)).1 (1) a. Nadiei sabe que proi vendrá. Nobody know:3S that pro come:3SFUT ‘Nobodyi knows that hei will come’. b. ~∃x ( person’ (x) & ( know’ (x) ( come’(x) ) )2 c. *Nadiei sabe que éli vendrá. Nobody know:3S that pro come3SFUT ‘Nobodyi knows that hej will come’. d. ~∃x ( person’ (x) & ( know’ (x) ( come’(y) ) ) (2) a. Nadiei sabe que el profesor lo vigila proi Nobody know:3S that the teacher HIM-CL watch-over:3S pro ‘Nobodyi knows that the teacher watches over himi’. b. ~∃x ( person’ (x) & know’ (x) (watch-over’ (p) (x) ) ) c. *Nadiei sabe que el profesor lo vigila a éli. Nobody know:3S that the teacher HIM-CL watch-over:3s him ‘Nobodyi knows that the teacher watches over himj’. d. ~∃x ( person’(x) & know’ (x) (watch-over’ (p) (y) ) ) Contrasts like those under (1) and (2) seem to suggest that a principle equivalent to (3) has to be taken to describe the strategy responsible for anaphora resolution in Spanish3. (3) Variable binding is restricted to null pronouns.
    [Show full text]
  • 3 Types of Anaphors
    3 Types of anaphors Moving from the definition and characteristics of anaphors to the types of ana- phors, this chapter will detail the nomenclature of anaphor types established for this book. In general, anaphors can be categorised according to: their form; the type of relationship to their antecedent; the form of their antecedents; the position of anaphors and antecedents, i.e. intrasentential or intersentential; and other features (cf. Mitkov 2002: 8-17). The procedure adopted here is to catego- rise anaphors according to their form. It should be stressed that the types dis- tinguished in this book are not universal categories, so the proposed classifica- tion is not the only possible solution. For instance, personal, possessive and re- flexive pronouns can be seen as three types or as one type. With the latter, the three pronoun classes are subsumed under the term “central pronouns”, as it is adopted here. Linguistic classifications of anaphors can be found in two established gram- mar books, namely in Quirk et al.’s A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (2012: 865) and in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Stirling & Huddleston 2010: 1449-1564). Quirk et al. include a chapter of pro- forms and here distinguish between coreference and substitution. However, they do not take anaphors as their starting point of categorisation. Additionally, Stirling & Huddleston do not consider anaphors on their own but together with deixis. As a result, anaphoric noun phrases with a definite article, for example, are not included in both categorisations. Furthermore, Schubert (2012: 31-55) presents a text-linguistic view, of which anaphors are part, but his classification is similarly unsuitable because it does not focus on the anaphoric items specifi- cally.
    [Show full text]
  • All for One: Subject-Verb Agreement for Compounds and Collective Subjects by K
    The Scrivener: Modern Legal Writing All for One: Subject-Verb Agreement for Compounds and Collective Subjects by K. K. DuVivier © 2004 K.K. DuVivier K.K. DuVivier is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Lawyering Process Program at the University of Denver College of Law. Do you have questions about legal writing? K.K. DuVivier will be happy to address them through the Scrivener column. Send your questions to: [email protected] or call her at (303) 871-6281. I frequently get questions from readers, and when possible, answer them immediately. However, the following question was complex enough that I thought I would share it, as well as my response, through a column. KK: I missed the memo that changed noun-verb agreement on nouns formerly defined as singular i.e. "staff," meaning more than one person, as in "the staff are." When did it change from "the staff is"? Who decided on this change, and why wasn’t I notified? I’m making light of this issue, but I’m perplexed. P.S. Grammar check didn’t get the memo either. District Judge Marilyn Leonard Compound Subjects The general rule is that a singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb. Examples: —She enjoys chocolate cake. (Singular subject with singular verb.) —They enjoy chocolate cake, too. (Plural subject with plural verb.) But what happens when the subject is two or more nouns combined by a conjunction? These "conjunctive-compound subjects" usually take a plural verb. Example: —The plaintiff and defendant agree to the continuance.
    [Show full text]
  • English 4 Using Clear and Coherent Sentences Employing Grammatical Structures Second Quarter - Week 2
    Department of Education English 4 Using Clear and Coherent Sentences employing Grammatical Structures Second Quarter - Week 2 Adelinda D. Dollesin Writer Hilario G. Canasa Dr. Ma. Myra E. Namit Validators Ivy M. Romano Ada T. Tagle Cecilia Theresa C. Claudel Dr. Ma. Theresa C. Dela Rosa Dr. Ma. Carmen D. Solayao Dr. Shella C. Navarro Quality Assurance Team Schools Division Office – Muntinlupa City Student Center for Life Skills Bldg., Centennial Ave., Brgy. Tunasan, Muntinlupa City (02) 8805-9935 / (02) 8805-9940 1 This module was designed to help you master the use of clear and coherent sentences employing appropriate grammatical structures (Kinds of Nouns: Count and Mass, Possessive and Collective Nouns) After going through this module, you are expected to: 1. Define and identify the kinds of nouns: mass and count nouns, possessive and collective nouns; and 2. Classify and use kinds of nouns (mass and count nouns, possessive and collective nouns) in simple sentence. A. Directions: Encircle the letter of the correct answer. 1. Linda will buy juice and chicken from the store. Which of the following words is a mass noun? A. chicken C. Linda B. juice D. store 2. Nena will use the long spoon for halo-halo. Which of the following is a count noun? A. Long C. use B. spoon D. will 3. They put sugar in the jar. What is the count noun in the sentence? A. jar C. sugar B. put D. they 4. Hera added rice in a bowl. Which is the mass noun in the sentence? A. bowl C. Hera B.
    [Show full text]
  • Verb Agreement with Collective Nouns and Other Tricky Subjects
    LESSON STUDENT LESSON SUMMARY COPYMASTER 6 Verb Agreement with Collective Nouns and Other Tricky Subjects ACADEMIC VOCABULARY collective noun: names a group of people or things number: in grammar, whether a word refers to one (singular) or more than one (plural) agreement: the use of singular verbs for singular subjects and plural verbs for plural subjects HERE’S HOW Grammar 6 Step 1: Review collective nouns. A collective noun can be singular or plural depending on how it is used in a sentence. EXAMPLES army, audience, class, committee, council, family, group, nation, team Step 2: Use a singular verb when a collective noun refers to one unified action or whole. Use a plural verb when it refers to individuals. Sometimes a pronoun signals whether the noun refers to a unit or to individuals. EXAMPLES In 1911, a robbery team steals the Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris. The museum staff considers its strategy to recover the painting. The police have identified their prime suspects. Step 3: Use a singular verb to agree with some nouns ending in -s or -ics, those which look plural but are actually singular. EXAMPLE WORDS: mumps, news, linguistics, physics, economics, molasses, mathematics Step 4: Use a singular verb to agree with the title of a work of art, literature, or music. Titles are singular, even when they consist of a plural noun. sion of Houghton Mifflin Company EXAMPLE TheTwelveChairsisa comic mystery story. Step 5: Use a singular verb to agree with most numerical expressions. Words and phrases that express measurement and number are treated as singular when they refer to an amount rather than to separate items.
    [Show full text]
  • The Place of Ad Hoc Categories Within the Typology of Plural Expressions
    Language Sciences 81 (2020) 101298 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Language Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci The place of ad hoc categories within the typology of plural expressions Edith Moravcsik Department of Linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413, USA article info abstract Article history: In this paper, ad hoc categories are assigned a place among plurals. It is shown that they Available online 20 July 2020 fall into the same subtypes that other plural expressions do: they may be based on sim- ilarity or contiguity and, like other plurals, at least some of their forms tend to involve Keywords: humans. Ad hoc categories differ from other plurals in that they involve partial rather than Ad hoc categories complete lists and thus they fill a systematic gap in the typology of plurals. plurals Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. taxonomy artonomy 1. Introduction The interpretation of any linguistic expression and of the categories they include is context-dependent at least to an extent (Smith and Samuelson, 1997; Lasersohn, 1999; Croft and Cruse, 2004: 92-106; Mauri, 2014, 2016; Mauri and Sansò, 2018). For example, in the sentence Here is the paper, the word paper may refer to an essay, to a newspaper, or to a ream of paper depending on context. Or in the sentence It is cold, the temperature referred to is understood differently on a summer day and in January. Daniel Casasanto and Gary Lupyan have argued that there are in fact no stable categories at all that would be entrenched ready-made in people's minds: all categories emerge from current situations as people create them on the fly (Casasanto and Lupyan, 2015).
    [Show full text]