英语物质-可数名词区别:多维度诠释和考察

Mass Count Distinction in English Language:Multi-dimensional Annotations and Investigation

英语物质-可数名词在形态-句法上有明确区别；其语义区别不能依靠名词在现实世界中的所指作为判断的全部依据。名词的形态-句法特征＋PL指派词汇特征＋CT需要符合词汇规则和句法规则。集合概念是阐释物质-可数名词句法-语义特征的有效工具。通过观察名词句法分布发现，无修饰语名词不具备词汇名词的句法特征，而更像是完整的名词短语。某些名词具有在物质域和可数域之间转化的潜能；与之相反，某些名词既不隶属于物质域，也不属于可数域。

English mass nouns differ from count nouns on morphological and syntactic properties. The semantic distinction between mass and count nouns should not be determined solely by the denotations of nouns. Morpho-syntactic feature of nouns ＋ PL is able to assign lexical feature ＋ CT,but must conform to lexical and syntactic rules. The concept of aggregation may serve as an effective tool to illustrate syntactic and semantic features of mass and count nouns. By checking syntactic distribution of nouns, it is found out that nouns without modifiers have no syntactic features of lexical words, and they work much more likely as nominal groups. Some nouns can shift between mass domain and count domain,while some others belong to neither of the two.