Children’s Early Understanding of Mass–Count Syntax: Individuation, Lexical Content, and the Number Asymmetry Hypothesis

How does mass–count syntax affect word meaning? Many theorists have proposed that count nouns denote individuals, whereas mass nouns do not (Bloom, 1999; Gordon, 1985; Link, 1983), a proposal that is supported by prototypical examples of each (table, water). However, studies of quantity judgments in 4-year-olds and adults demonstrate that some mass nouns (furniture) do denote individuals (Barner & Snedeker, 2005). This is problematic for bootstrapping theories that posit one-to-one syntax-semantics mappings (individual ↔ count; nonindividual ↔ mass; Bloom, 1999), unless mass nouns that denote individuals are late-learned exceptions to mappings. This article investigates this possibility in 3-year-olds and adults using 2 methods: word extension and quantity judgment. Both methods indicate that novel mass nouns can denote individuals in both age groups, and thus fail to support simplified syntax-semantics mappings. Also, differences between word extension and quantity judgment raise the possibility that the tasks measure different underlying knowledge.