How similar are objects and events?

Semanticists often assume an ontology for natural language that includes not only ordinary objects, but also events, and other sorts of entities. We link this ontology to how speakers represent static and dynamic entities. Specifically, we test how speakers determine whether an entity counts as “atomic” by using count vs. mass (e.g., some gleebs, some gleeb) and distributive vs. non-distributive descriptions (e.g., gleeb every second or so, gleeb around a little). We then seek evidence for atomic representation in a non-linguistic task. Ultimately we suggest that natural language ontology reveals properties of language-independent conceptualization.

[1]  S. Prasada,et al.  Conceiving of entities as objects and as stuff , 2002, Cognition.

[2]  Lance J. Rips,et al.  The object: Substance:: Event: Process analogy , 2018 .

[3]  Paul M. Pietroski,et al.  Interface transparency and the psychosemantics of most , 2011 .

[4]  Jaap Hoepelman,et al.  On the mass-count distinction and the French imparfait and passé simple , 1980 .

[5]  Jeffrey Lidz,et al.  The Meaning of ‘Most’: Semantics, Numerosity and Psychology , 2009 .

[6]  Alexander P. D. Mourelatos.  Events, processes, and states , 1978 .

[7]  Susan J. Hespos,et al.  Conceptual precursors to language , 2004, Nature.

[8]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Minimalist Program , 1992 .

[9]  Brendan S. Gillon,et al.  Mass Terms: Mass Terms , 2012 .

[10]  Gennaro Chierchia,et al.  Plurality of Mass Nouns and the Notion of “Semantic Parameter” , 1998 .

[11]  Susan J. Hespos,et al.  PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Article Five-Month-Old Infants Have Different Expectations for Solids and Liquids , 2022 .

[12]  Francis Jeffry Pelletier,et al.  Descriptive Metaphysics, Natural Language Metaphysics, Sapir-Whorf, and All That Stuff: Evidence from the Mass-Count Distinction , 2010 .

[13]  S. Sloman,et al.  Similarity as an explanatory construct , 1998, Cognition.

[14]  Alexis Wellwood,et al.  Talking about Causing Events , 2014, Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication.

[15]  Barbara Hall-Partee.  Semantics — Mathematics or Psychology? , 1979 .

[16]  Paul M. Pietroski,et al.  Concepts, Meanings and Truth: First Nature, Second Nature and Hard Work , 2010 .

[17]  Wynn Chao,et al.  The Metaphysics of Natural Language(s) , 2012 .

[18]  D. Barr,et al.  Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. , 2013, Journal of memory and language.

[19]  Susan Rothstein.  Adverbial quantification over events , 1995 .

[20]  Emmon Bach,et al.  The algebra of events , 1986, The Language of Time - A Reader.

[21]  David L. Davidson,et al.  The Logical Form of Action Sentences , 2001 .

[22]  Emmon Bach,et al.  Natural Language Metaphysics , 1986 .

[23]  R. Shepard.  Attention and the metric structure of the stimulus space. , 1964 .

[24]  Susan J. Hespos,et al.  Divisions of the physical world: Concepts of objects and substances. , 2015, Psychological bulletin.

[25]  Jeffrey M. Zacks,et al.  Event structure in perception and conception. , 2001, Psychological bulletin.

[26]  Lucas Champollion.  Parts of a Whole: Distributivity as a Bridge between Aspect and Measurement , 2017 .

[27]  Paolo Acquaviva,et al.  Lexical Plurals: A Morphosemantic Approach , 2008 .

[28]  Maria Aloni,et al.  The Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics , 2016 .

[29]  H. Borer.  In name only , 2005 .

[30]  R. Nosofsky.  American Psychological Association, Inc. Choice, Similarity, and the Context Theory of Classification , 2022 .

[31]  A. Tversky.  Features of Similarity , 1977 .

[32]  Gunnar Björnsson,et al.  The Pragmatics of Insensitive Assessments: Understanding The Relativity of Assessments of Judgments of Personal Taste, Epistemic Modals, and More , 2010 .

[33]  R. Shepard.  The analysis of proximities: Multidimensional scaling with an unknown distance function. II , 1962 .

[34]  David Barner,et al.  Events and the ontology of individuals: Verbs as a source of individuating mass and count nouns , 2008, Cognition.

[35]  Susan J. Hespos,et al.  Infants' ability to parse continuous actions. , 2009, Developmental psychology.

[36]  Godehard Link.  The Logical Analysis of Plurals and Mass Terms: A Lattice‐theoretical Approach , 2008 .

[37]  P. Pietroski.  Framing Event Variables , 2015 .

[38]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  वाक्यविन्यास का सैद्धान्तिक पक्ष = Aspects of the theory of syntax , 1965 .

[39]  Susan Rothstein,et al.  Counting and the Mass/Count Distinction , 2010, J. Semant..

[40]  Brendan S. Gillon,et al.  Towards a common semantics for english count and mass nouns , 1992 .

[41]  David Barner,et al.  Children's Early Understanding of Mass-Count Syntax: Individuation, Lexical Content, and the Number Asymmetry Hypothesis , 2006 .

[42]  Michael White,et al.  Twigs, Sequences and the Temporal Constitution of Predicates , 2001 .

[43]  É. Mathieu,et al.  Flavors of Division , 2012, Linguistic Inquiry.

[44]  Zeno Vendler,et al.  Verbs and Times , 1957, The Language of Time - A Reader.

[45]  Manfred Krifka,et al.  Nominal Reference, Temporal Constitution and Quantification in Event Semantics , 1989 .

[46]  Kathrin Koslicki,et al.  Isolation and Non-Arbitrary Division: Frege's Two Criteria for Counting , 1997, Synthese.

[47]  Susan Rothstein,et al.  Semantics for Counting and Measuring , 2017 .

[48]  Susan J. Hespos,et al.  Prelinguistic Relational Concepts: Investigating Analogical Processing in Infants. , 2015, Child development.

[49]  Richard Montague,et al.  The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English , 1973 .

[50]  Megan M. Saylor,et al.  Infants' ability to parse continuous actions: Further evidence , 2010, Neural Networks.