This paper proposes a method for detecting errors in article usage and singular plural usage based on the mass count distinction. First, it learns decision lists from training data generated automatically to distinguish mass and count nouns. Then, in order to improve its performance, it is augmented by feedback that is obtained from the writing of learners. Finally, it detects errors by applyin...

Traditionally, syntactic parsing is done using probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs) or variants thereof, as there are standard efficient methods for parsing with PCFGs and for extracting them from a corpus. However, PCFGs do not accurately represent many dependencies in natural language. For example, many determiners can only occur with certain types of nouns. Determiners like a and anot...

In this paper, we attempt to answer the vexing question why it should be the case that only certain types of noun meanings exhibit a mass/count variation in the lexicalization of their semantic properties, while others do not. This question has so far remained unanswered, or been set aside. We will do so by focusing on the role of contextsensitivity (already highlighted in recent theories of th...

We propose a novel semantic analysis of the mass/count distinction, within a new framework combining the theory of mereology with Probabilistic Type Theory with Records, Prob-TTR (Cooper et al. 2014)). While the notions akin to VAGUENESS (Chierchia 2010) and OVERLAP (Landman 2011) are needed to ground this distinction, neither on its own is sufficient to accommodate the whole range of data, esp...

This paper documents the number-related properties of Dëne Sųłiné (Athapaskan). Dëne Sųłiné has neither number inflection nor numeral classifiers. Nouns are bare, occur as such in argument positions, and combine directly with numerals. With these traits, Dëne Sųłiné represents a type of language that is little considered in formal typologies of number and countability. The paper critiques one i...

When presented with an entity (e.g., a wooden honey-dipper) labeled with a novel noun, how does a listener know that the noun refers to an instance of an object kind (honey-dipper) rather than to a substance kind (wood)? While English speakers draw upon count-mass syntax for clues to the noun’s meaning, linguists have proposed that classifier languages, which lack count-mass syntax, provide oth...

Hudson (1990) proposes that each conjunct in a coordinate phrase forms dependency relations with heads or dependents outside the coordinate phrase (the "multi-head" view). This proposal is tested through corpus analysis of Wall Street Journal text. For right-branching constituents (such as direct-object NPs), a short-long preference for conjunct ordering is observed; this is predicted by the mu...