In English, some common nouns, like 'dog', can combine with determiners like 'a' and 'many', but not with 'much', while other nouns, like 'water', can be used together with 'much', but not with 'a' and 'many'. These common nouns have been respectively called count nouns (CNs) and mass nouns (MNs). How do children learn to use CNs and MNs in the appropriate contexts? Gaining a better understanding of this is the goal of this paper. (...) To do so, it is important to first get clear on the nature of the distinction between CNs and MNs. Is it a grammatical distinction? Does the distinction apply to nouns, to their senses, or only to their occurrences within noun phrases (NPs)? Showing that the count-mass distinction really is grammatical and applies to nouns is the matter of my first part. Then the question occurs as to whether the distinction corresponds to a systematic difference in the sense of count and mass expressions. If it does, children's acquisition of the distinction may simply follow from their ability to learn the senses of these expressions and determiners. In a second part, I thus discuss various semantic characterizations that have been proposed, and make explicit the exceptions from which they suffer. Now, understanding the sense of an expression is interpreting it correctly as it occurs in an utterance. Formal characterizations of our interpretations help to clarify what is involved in learning and understanding these expressions. In my third part, I examine several formal characterizations with the purpose to specify what would be an adequate representation of the interpretations of mass and count nominal expressions. The understanding gained in these first three parts is used to identify what abilities are exercised by children when they acquire the count-mass distinction. The picture that emerges differs from earlier views of the acquisition in several respects. I thus describe these views and highlight the differences between them and my own proposal. In a final, fifth part, I critically examine the experimental evidence that proponents of some of the accounts of the acquisition of the count-mass distinction have cited in their favor. (shrink)

In this paper I propose and formalize a theory of the mass-count distinction in which the denotations of count nouns are built from non-overlapping generators, while the denotations of mass nouns are built from overlapping generators. Counting is counting of generators, and it will follow that counting is only correct on count denotations.I will show that the theory allows two kinds of mass nouns: mess mass nouns with denotations built from overlapping minimal generators, (...) and neat mass nouns with denotations built from overlapping generators, where the overlap is not located in the minimal generators. Prototypical mass nouns like meat and mud are of the first kind. I will argue that mass nouns like furniture and kitchenware are of the second type.I will discuss several phenomena—all involving one way or the other explicitly or implicitly individual classifiers like stuks in Dutch—that show that both distinctions mass/count and mess/neat are linguistically robust. I will show in particular that nouns like kitchenware pattern in various ways like count nouns, and not like mess mass nouns, and that these ways naturally involve the neat structure of their denotation. I will also show that they are real mass nouns: they can involve measures in the way mess mass nouns can and count nouns cannot.I will discuss grinding interpretations of count nouns, here rebaptized fission interpretations, and argue that these interpretations differ in crucial ways from the interpretations of lexical mass nouns. The paper will end with a foundational problem raised by fission interpretations, and in the course of this, atomless interpretation domains will re-enter the scene through the back door. (shrink)

The paper argues that one distinction between concrete count nouns and concrete mass nouns is that geach's derelativization thesis is valid for the former but not valid for the latter. That is, Where 'f' is a concrete count noun 'x is (an) f' means 'for some y, X is the same f as y', But where 'f' is a concrete mass noun this is not so; rather, In this case, 'x is f' is tantamount to 'for (...) some y, X is the f of y'. It is further suggested that abstract nouns are in this respect to be grouped with concrete mass nouns. (shrink)

The word "world" has in fact many ordinary uses as a count noun; I shall discuss some of them below.(2) There is however also a distinctive philosophical use found in recent ontology (in the sense in which Quine reintroduced this term in analytic philosophy, for theories about what there is). As to this philosophical use, I shall argue that there is no reason to think that it refers to anything, if indeed it is intelligible at all.

In many languages, common nouns are divided into two morpho-syntactic subclasses, count nouns and mass nouns. Yet in certain contexts, count nouns can be used as if they were mass nouns. This linguistic phenomenon is called conversion. In this paper, we consider the conversions of count nouns into mass nouns in French. First, we identify a general semantic constraint that must be respected in these conversions, and various cases in which (...) a count noun can be used as a mass noun. Second, we examine the effects that semantic and pragmatic factors play in their interpretation. More precisely, we try to determine whether there are specific conventions for interpreting count -> mass conversions in French. Several arguments are discussed, having to do with considerations of theoretical economy, so-called "ambiguity tests", differences among languages as to what interpretations are available for conversions, and the strong feeling of conventionality of some uses. This leads us to postulate the existence of a number of specific conventions for interpreting conversions in French. (shrink)

I present a high-level account of the semantical distinction between count nouns and non-count nouns. The basic idea is that count nouns are semantically either singular or plural and non-count nouns are neither.

The paper develops two approaches to mass term and count noun substantivals. One treats them on the model of adjectives, Designating phases of a more basic substratum. The other treats them in a more commonsense way, As multiply designating individuals. The two accounts are tested against two problems originally raised by aristotle and heraclitus respectively. The comparison is aimed at bringing out certain central features of one-Place predication, Or more materially, Features of the notion of kind.

The standard versions of predicativism are committed to the following two theses: proper names are count nouns in all their occurrences, and names do not refer to objects but express name-bearing properties. The main motivation for predicativism is to provide a uniform explanation of referential names and predicative names. According to predicativism, predicative names are fundamental and referential names are explained by appealing to a null determiner functioning like “the” or “that.” This paper has two goals. The first (...) is to reject the predicativists’ explanation of the two types of names. I present three syntactic counterexamples to the predicativists’ account of referential names: incorporation, modification, and measure phrase uses. The second goal is to present a novel strategy to explain the two types of names. I propose that referential names are fundamental but that there are null morphemes available for transforming a name into a count noun (and possibly into other syntactic categories). (shrink)

Names are referring expressions and interact with the determiner system only exceptionally, in stark contrast with count nouns. The-predicativists like Sloat, Matushansky, and Fara claim otherwise, maintaining that syntactic data offers indicates that names belong to a special syntactic category which differs from common count nouns only in how they interact with ‘the’. I argue that the-predicativists have incorrectly discerned the syntactic facts. They have bypassed a large range of important syntactic data and misconstrued a critical (...) data point on which they ground the-predicativism. The right data offers new compelling syntactic grounds for referentialism. (shrink)

In English, some common nouns, like "cat", can be used in the singular and in the plural, while others, like "wate"r, are invariable. Moreover, nouns like "cat" can be employed with numerals like "one" and "two" and determiners like "a", "many" and "few", but neither with "much" nor "little". On the contrary, nouns like "milk" can be used with determiners like "much" and "little", but neither with "a", "one" nor "many". These two types of nouns constitute (...) two morphosyntactic sub-classes of English common nouns; cf. for instance Gillon (1992). They have been respectively called count nouns and mass nouns. In many languages, notably Romance and Germanic languages, one can similarly identify two morphosyntactic subclasses of common nouns, nouns of one class admitting singular and plural number, and nouns of the other being invariable in grammatical number. The question we want to address in this paper is one in lexical semantics: Is there anything characteristic about the meaning of a count noun? (shrink)

My thesis examines the mass/count distinction; that is, to illustrate, the distinction between the role of "hair" in "There is hair in my soup" and "There is a hair in my soup". In "hair" has a mass-occurrence; in a count-occurrence. These two kinds of noun-occurrences, I argue, can be marked off from each other largely on syntactic grounds. Along the semantic dimension, I suggest that, in order to account for the intuitive distinction between nouns in their mass-occurrences (...) and their singular count-occurrences, there must be a difference between the semantic role each of them plays. From among the available options, the most attractive one is to analyze nouns in their mass-occurrences as predicates. But, traditionally, nouns in their singular count-occurrences are also analyzed as predicates. I propose, therefore, that there are two different kinds of predicates: mass-predicates, such as "is-hair", and singular count-predicates, such as "is-a-hair". Neither kind is reducible to the other. ;Mass-predicates and singular count-predicates have something in common: they are both predicates. That is, they are related to their extension in the same way, viz. They are both true of whatever falls in their extension and the relation "is-true-of" at play here is, I conjecture, the same in both cases. The two kinds of predicates are also related to each other in a certain way, namely through a one-way entailment relation going from count to mass: everything that is a hair is also hair, but not conversely. And, finally, there are certain truth-conditional differences between them: the singular count-predicate "is-a-hair" is true only of whole individual hairs; the mass-predicate "is-hair" is true of individual hairs as well as hair-sums and hair-parts. ;These truth-conditional differences turn out to have interesting implications, in particular having to do with the part/whole relation and the act of counting. It is often held that mass-predicates are, as part of their meaning, homogeneous, while singular count-predicates are said to lack this property, as part of their meaning. I suggest, instead, that at least distributivity has to be rejected as a semantic property of mass-predicates, on the grounds that, to pick a representative example, water is not infinitely divisible into parts that are themselves water. The second kind of implication, having to do with the act of counting, is as follows. When we wish to associate, say, the world's hair with cardinal number , we need to speak of it in terms of individual hairs, the things of which the singular count-predicate "is-a-hair" is true. If, on the other hand, we are interested in amounts of hair , we need to speak of the world's hair in terms of those things of which the mass-predicate "is-hair" is true. (shrink)

There are predicates that I call “stubbornly distributive” based on what happens when they are combined with plural count noun phrases. I will use these stubbornly distributive predicates to identify and analyze a certain subset of mass nouns which I call “multi-participant nouns”. Traffic and rubble are multi-participant nouns but furniture and luggage turn out not to be. Importantly, ‘typical’ mass nouns like water are multiparticipant nouns.

English mass noun phrases & count noun phrases differ only minimally grammatically. The basis for the difference is ascribed to a difference in the features +/-CT. These features serve the morphosyntactic function of determining the available options for the assigment of grammatical number, itself determined by the features +/-PL: +CT places no restriction on the available options, while -CT, in the unmarked case, restricts the available options to -PL. They also serve the semantic function of determining the sort of (...) denotation associated with demonstrative & quantified noun phrases. The feature -CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose sole member is the greatest aggregate of which the noun phrase or noun is true; the feature +CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose members are all & only those minimal aggregates of which the noun phrase or noun is true. At the same time, neither mass NPs nor count NPs that are arguments of a predicate have their predicate evaluated with respect to their denotations. Rather, the predicate is evaluated with respect to an aggregation, a set of aggregates constructed from the denotation of the noun phrase that is an argument of the predicate. 3 Tables, 4 Figures, 74 References. AA. (shrink)

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 influential proposal, that of Chierchia (in: Rothstein (ed.) Events and grammar, 1998a; Natural Language Semantics 6: 339–405, 1998b), and presents an alternative (...) number typology, which introduces variation in the semantics of numerals. It will be shown that bare nouns in Dëne Sųłiné can be mass or count. Hence, the difference between count and mass cannot be expressed in terms of number, as in Chierchia. Instead, I express it in terms of atomicity. Mass nouns have nonatomic denotations, bare count nouns have atomic denotations that comprise singularities and pluralities. I also propose that numerals contain a function that accesses the singularities in a noun’s denotation. Hence they are compatible with bare count nouns, but not with mass nouns. In classifier languages, numerals denote a cardinality only; singularity-accessing functions are expressed in separate elements: the classifiers. Thus, languages like Chinese require classifiers because the numerals are semantically deficient, and not, as is assumed by Chierchia and others, the bare nouns. (shrink)

A semantic analysis of mass nouns is given in terms of a logic of classes as many. In previous work it was shown that plural reference and predication for count nouns can be interpreted within this logic of classes as many in terms of the subclasses of the classes that are the extensions of those count nouns. A brief review of that account of plurals is given here and it is then shown how the same (...) kind of interpretation can also be given for mass nouns. (shrink)

The mass/count distinction attracts a lot of attention among cognitive scientists, possibly because it involves in fundamental ways the relation between language (i.e. grammar), thought (i.e. extralinguistic conceptual systems) and reality (i.e. the physical world). In the present paper, I explore the view that the mass/count distinction is a matter of vagueness. While every noun/concept may in a sense be vague, mass nouns/concepts are vague in a way that systematically impairs their use in counting. This idea has (...) never been systematically pursued, to the best of my knowledge. I make it precise relying on supervaluations (more specifically, ‘data semantics’) to model it. I identify a number of universals pertaining to how the mass/count contrast is encoded in the languages of the world, along with some of the major dimensions along which languages may vary on this score. I argue that the vagueness based model developed here provides a useful perspective on both. The outcome (besides shedding light on semantic variation) seems to suggest that vagueness is not just an interface phenomenon that arises in the interaction of Universal Grammar (UG) with the Conceptual/Intentional System (to adopt Chomsky’s terminology), but it is actually part of the architecture of UG. (shrink)

Proper names are generally taken to be count nouns. This paper argues that this is mistaken and that at least in some languages, for example German, names divide into mass and count. Making use of Kayne's (2005, 2010) theory of light nouns, this paper argues that light nouns are part of (simple) names and that a mass-count distinction among light nouns explains the behavior of certain types of names in German as mass rather (...) than count. The paper elaborates the role of light nouns with new generalizations regarding their linguistic behavior in quantificational and pronominal NPs, their selection of relative pronouns in German, and a general difference in the support of plural anaphora between English and German. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with the predicativist’s identification of proper names and common count nouns. Although Predicativism emerges precisely to account for certain syntactic facts about proper names, namely, that they behave like common count nouns on occasions, it seems clear that proper names and common count nouns have different properties, and this undermines the thesis that proper names are in fact just common count nouns. The predicativist’s strategy to bridge these differences (...) is to postulate an unpronounced determiner to go with names when they appear to function as singular terms, making them effectively a concealed determiner phrase. In this paper I revisit these differences and argue that the predicativist’s strategy is not well justified and worse, it does not help make proper names and common count nouns unified; rather, it makes proper names exceptional as count nouns. I also discuss the referentialist’s take on names qua predicates and make some suggestions about how the syntactic difference between proper names and count nouns should be understood. (shrink)

This paper makes two central claims. The first is that there is an intimate and non-trivial relation between the mass/count distinction on the one hand and the measure/individuation distinction on the other: a defining property of mass nouns is that they denote sets of entities which can be measured, while count nouns denote sets of entities which can be counted. Crucially, this is a difference in grammatical perspective and not in ontological status. The second claim is (...) that the mass/count distinction between two types of nominals has its direct correlate at the level of classifier phrases: classifier phrases like two bottles of wine are ambiguous between a counting, or individuating, reading and a measure reading. On the counting reading, this phrase has count semantics, on the measure reading it has mass semantics. (shrink)

The principal question addressed is whether there is a division among common nouns which is similar to a familiar division among noun phrases that designate particular-level individuals: the one which is captured in the relevant literature as the difference between de jure rigid and not de jure rigid singular terms. In relation with the previous philosophical literature relevant to noun rigidity it is argued that the extant positions on the matter are not defended on the basis of well-founded syntactic (...) categories and proper semantic arguments. Proper ways to argue for rigidity ascriptions to nouns are described. Then, such arguments are sought for the case of rigid/non-rigid division among count common nouns. It is shown that there are plausible, albeit inconclusive, reasons to hold that among common nouns (N-bar expressions) only simple common nouns are kind designators, and that if that is the case these simple common nouns will have to be reckoned as de jure rigid designators. (shrink)

The book is an investigation of the semantics of numericals, counting and measuring, and its connection to the mass/count distinction from a theoretical and crosslinguistic perspective. It reviews some recent major linguistic results in these topics, and presents the author's new research including in-depth case studies of a number of typologically unrelated languages.

The mass-count distinction is a morpho-syntactic distinction among nouns that is generally taken to have semantic content. This content is generally taken to reflect a conceptual, cognitive, or ontological distinction and relates to philosophical and cognitive notions of unity, identity, and counting. The mass-count distinction is certainly one of the most interesting and puzzling topics in syntax and semantics that bears on ontology and cognitive science. This volume aims to contribute to some of the gaps in the (...) research on the topic, in particular the relation between the syntactic mass-count distinction and semantic and cognitive distinctions, diagnostics for mass and count, the distribution and role of numeral classifiers, abstract mass nouns, and object mass nouns (furniture, police force, clothing). (shrink)

Sortal terms, such as table or horse, are count nouns (akin to a basic-level terms). According to some theories, the meaning of sortals provides conditions for telling objects apart (individuating objects, e.g., telling one table from a second) and for identifying objects over time (e.g., determining that a particular horse at one time is the same horse at another). A number of psychologists have proposed that sortal concepts likewise provide psychologically real conditions for individuating and identifying things. However, (...) this paper reports five experiments that cast doubt on these psychological claims. Experiments 1-3 suggest that sortal concepts do not determine when an object ceases to exist and therefore do not decide when the object can no longer be identical to a later one. Experiments 4-5 similarly suggest that sortal concepts do not provide determinate conditions for individuating objects. For example, they do not always decide whether a room contains one table or two. All five experiments feature ordinary objects undergoing ordinary changes. (shrink)

The mass-count distinction is a morpho-syntactic distinction among nouns that is generally taken to have semantic content. This content is generally taken to reflect a conceptual, cognitive, or ontological distinction and relates to philosophical and cognitive notions of unity, identity, and counting. The mass-count distinction is certainly one of the most interesting and puzzling topics in syntax and semantics that bears on ontology and cognitive science. In many ways, the topic remains under-researched, though, across languages and with (...) respect to particular phenomena within a given language, with respect to its connection to cognition, and with respect to the way it may be understood ontologically. This volume aims to contribute to some of the gaps in the research on the topic, in particular the relation between the syntactic mass-count distinction and semantic and cognitive distinctions, diagnostics for mass and count, the distribution and role of numeral classifiers, abstract mass nouns, and object mass nouns.The mass-count distinction is a morpho-syntactic distinction among nouns that is generally taken to have semantic content. This content is generally taken to reflect a conceptual, cognitive, or ontological distinction and relates to philosophical and cognitive notions of unity, identity, and counting. The mass-count distinction is certainly one of the most interesting and puzzling topics in syntax and semantics that bears on ontology and cognitive science. In many ways, the topic remains under-researched, though, across languages and with respect to particular phenomena within a given language, with respect to its connection to cognition, and with respect to the way it may be understood ontologically. This volume aims to contribute to some of the gaps in the research on the topic, in particular the relation between the syntactic mass-count distinction and semantic and cognitive distinctions, diagnostics for mass and count, the distribution and role of numeral classifiers, abstract mass nouns, and object mass nouns. (shrink)

Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. Othering can be “crude” or “sophisticated”, the defining difference being that in the latter case othering depends on the interpretation of the other/out-group in terms that are applicable only to the self/in-group but that are unconsciously assumed to be universal. The Mass Noun Thesis, the idea that all nouns in (...) certain languages are grammatically and folk-ontologically similar to mass nouns in English, is an example of such sophisticated othering. According to this Thesis, (a) count nouns refer to discrete objects and mass nouns to stuffs; (b) the other’s language has only mass nouns and thus no count nouns; and therefore, (c) the other’s folk-ontology is an ontology of mass stuffs only. There is much evidence, however, that folk-ontology is independent from language. This paper argues that the Mass Noun Thesis is a case of sophisticated othering rooted in a conflation of grammatical and ontological conceptions of mass and count nouns that is applicable to the language of the interpreter/self but not to the languages of the relevant others, and that othering in this case is driven by a need to create some radically alien other to support a scientific or philosophical theory. (shrink)

Both notional and grammatical number affect agreement during language production. To explore their workings, we investigated how semantic integration, a type of conceptual relatedness, produces variations in agreement (Solomon & Pearlmutter, 2004). These agreement variations are open to competing notional and lexical-grammatical number accounts. The notional hypothesis is that changes in number agreement reflect differences in referential coherence: More coherence yields more singularity. The lexical-grammatical hypothesis is that changes in agreement arise from competition between nouns differing in grammatical number: (...) More competition yields more plurality. These hypotheses make opposing predictions about semantic integration. On the notional hypothesis, semantic integration promotes singular agreement. On the lexical-grammatical hypothesis, semantic integration promotes plural agreement. We tested these hypotheses with agreement elicitation tasks in two experiments. Both experiments supported the notional hypothesis, with semantic integration creating faster and more frequent singular agreement. This implies that referential coherence mediates the effect of semantic integration on number agreement. (shrink)

The notions of part and whole play an important role for ontology and in many areas of the semantics of natural language. Both in philosophy and linguistic semantics, usually a particular notion of part structure is used, that of extensional mereology. This paper argues that such a notion is insufficient for ontology and, especially, for the semantic analysis of the relevant constructions of natural language. What is needed for the notion of part structure, in addition to an ordering among parts, (...) is the notion of integrated whole. In the context of semantics, the notion of an integrated whole needs to be relativized to a situation, or so it is argued. (shrink)

This introduction to 'Mass and Count...' gives an overview of different views of the mass-count distinction as well as an introduction to the papers in the edited volume.

The sentence With these three shirts and four pairs of pants, one can make twelve different outfits does not entail that one can dress twelve persons. The article proposes an analysis of “configurational” entities like outfits as individual concepts. It investigates the interaction of noun phrases based on such nouns with temporal and modal operators and in collective and cumulative interpretations. It also discusses a generalization from tokens to types, as in with the seven pieces of a tan- gram (...) set, one can lay dozens of figures, suggesting an analysis of outfits and tangram figures in terms of properties. (shrink)

In the formation of extended noun phrases, expressions are used that describe some dimension. Weight is described by each of the prenominal expressions in heavy rock, too much ballast, 2 lb rock, 2 lbs of rocks. The central claim of this paper is that the position of these types of expressions within the noun phrase limits the kinds of dimensions they may describe. The limitations have to do with whether or not the dimension tracks relevant part-whole relations. An analogy is (...) made between these constraints and the well-known constraints on thematic relations that are incurred by the position of a noun phrase in a clause. A proposal is made about the meanings of expressions like too much and 2 pounds which explains their common cross-categorial distribution and this informs the analysis of their use in noun phrases. A position is taken on the meaning of the count mass distinction which, in conjunction with the hypothesis about dimensions, explains asymmetries in the distribution of prenominal adjectives with count and mass nouns. (shrink)

Simple mass nouns are words like ‘water’, ‘furniture’ and ‘gold’. We can form complex mass noun phrases such as ‘dirty water’, ‘leaded gold’ and ‘green grass’. I do not propose to discuss the problems in giving a characterization of the words that are mass versus those that are not. For the purposes of this paper I shall make the following decrees: (a) nothing that is not a noun or noun phrase can be mass, (b) no abstract noun phrases are (...) considered mass, (c) words like ‘thing’, ‘entity’ and ‘object’ are not mass, (d) I shall not consider such words as ‘stuff’, ‘substance or ‘matter’, (e) measures on mass nouns (like ‘gallon of gasoline’, ‘blade of grass’, etc.) are not considered, (f) plurals of count terms are not considered mass. Within these limitations, we can say generally that mass noun phrases are those phrases that ‘much’ can be prefexed to, by ‘many’ cannot be prefexed to, without an0maly.l Semantically, such phrases usually have the property of collectiveness- they are true of any sum of things of which they are true ; and of divisiveness - they are true of any part (down to a certain limit) of things of which they are true. All of this, however, is only ‘generally speaking’ - I shall mostly use only the simple examples given above and ignore the problems in giving a complete characterization of mass nouns. In the paper I want to discuss some problems involved in casting English sentences containing mass nouns into some artificial language; but in order to do this we should have some anchoring framework on which to justify or reject a given proposal. The problem of finding an adequate language can be viewed as a case of translation (from English to the artificial language), where the translation relation must meet certain requirements. I shall suggest five such requirements; others could be added. (shrink)

Since the mid-1980s, there has been a gradual ethical drift in the provision of maternal care in African health facilities in general, and in Cameroon in particular, despite government efforts. In fact, in Cameroon, an increasing number of caregivers are reportedly not providing compassionate care in maternity services. Consequently, many women, particularly the financially vulnerable, experience numerous difficulties in accessing these health services. In this article, we highlight the unequal access to care in public maternity services in Cameroon in general (...) and the Noun Division in particular. For this study, in addition to documentary review, two qualitative data collection techniques were used: direct observation and individual interviews. Following the field work, the observation data were categorized and analyzed to assess their relevance and significance in relation to the topics listed in the observation checklist. Interviews were recorded using a dictaphone; they were subsequently transcribed and the data categorized and coded. After this stage, an analysis grid was constructed for content analysis of the transcripts, to study the frequency of topics addressed during the interviews, as well as divergences and convergences among the respondents. The results of this data analysis showed that money has become the driving force in service provision. As such, it is the patient’s economic capital that counts. Considered “clients”, pregnant women without sufficient financial resources wait long hours in corridors; some die in pain under the indifferent gaze of the professionals who are supposed to take care of them. In sharp contrast, the findings revealed that financially privileged patients are able to bribe caregivers to attract their favour and obtain prompt, careful, and effective care. These ethical abuses observed in the Noun public health facilities drive women to use, from the beginning of their pregnancies to the delivery, only healthcare delivered by traditional health attendants. (shrink)

The concept of the universal was born in the lands we now call Europe, yet it is precisely the universal that is Europe's undoing. All European politics is caught in a tension: to assert a European identity is to be open to multiplicity, but this very openness could dissolve Europe as such. This book reflects on Europe and its changing boundaries over the span of twenty centuries. A work of philosophy, it consistently draws on concrete events. From ancient Greece and (...) Rome, to Christianity, to the Reformation, to the national revolutions of the twentieth century, what we today call "Europe" has been a succession of projects in the name of ecclesia or community. Empire, Church, and EU: all have been constructed in contrast to an Oriental "other." The stakes of Europe, then, are as much metaphysical as political. Redefining a series of key concepts such as world, place, transportation, and the common, this book sheds light on Europe as process by engaging with the most significant philosophical debates on the subject, including the work of Marx, Husserl, Heidegger, Patocka, and Nancy. (shrink)

The distinction between abstract and concrete concepts is fundamental to cognitive linguistics and cognitive science. This distinction is commonly operationalized through concreteness ratings based on the aggregated judgments of many people. What is often overlooked in experimental studies using this operationalization is that ratings are attributed to words, not to concepts directly. In this paper we explore the relationship between the linguistic properties of English words and conceptual abstractness/concreteness. Based on hypotheses stated in the existing linguistic literature we select a (...) set of variables and verify whether they are statistically associated with concreteness ratings. We show that English nouns are rated as more concrete compared to other parts of speech, but mass nouns are rated as less concrete than count nouns. Furthermore, a more complex morphological structure is associated with abstractness, and as for etymology, French- and Latin-derived words are more abstract than words of other origin. This shows that linguistic properties of words are indeed associated with the degree of concreteness that we attribute to the underlying concepts, and we discuss the implications that these findings have for linguistic theory and for empirical investigations in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

We articulate a holistic understanding of hope, going beyond the common conceptualization of hope in terms of positive affect and cognition by considering what hope means for the underprivileged. In the recognition that hope is always situated in a particular place, we explore the perspective of the privileged and the underprivileged, clarifying how spatial contexts shape their goals for the future and their agency toward attaining these goals. Where some people experience precarity due to their disability, race, gender, sexuality, and (...) social class, others enjoy enhanced agency due to their privilege. In our analysis, this loss of agency does not mean the underprivileged are hopeless; instead, it suggests that hope can incorporate negative affect and cognition. In our view, a spatial understanding acknowledges the power of hope in discouraging situations, and it points to practical measures through which hope can be cultivated by marginalized communities. (shrink)

George S. Counts was a_ _major figure in American education for almost fifty years. Republication of this early work draws special attention to Counts’s role as a social and political activist. Three particular themes make the book noteworthy because of their importance in Counts’s plan for change as well as for their continuing contem­porary importance: _ _Counts’s crit­icism of child-centered progressives; _ _the role Counts assigns to teachers in achieving educational and social re­form; and Counts’s idea for the re­form of (...) the American economy. (shrink)

The Standards' ecumenical implications are critically assessed in view of the risks which their cross-denominational or cross-faith cooperation implications on the one hand, and, on the other hand, their secular commitments to mutual learning, non-proselytizing, professionalism, and efficiency assessment might carry for chaplains' properly spiritual orientation. The problem posed by the ambiguity of language is raised as a warning that concepts like human dignity have a profoundly different meaning in secular and Christian contexts. Invoking such concepts can be seriously misleading.

The article is an attempt to make sense of the different interdisciplinary perspectives associated with people’s attachment to places with a view to construct a holistic template for understanding people-place relationships and experiences. The author took note of the theoretical contributions of Jorgensen & Stedman, Scannell & Gifford, and Seamon to construct an integrative framework for understanding emotional links to places and people’s perception and experience of places. This was done with the intention of illuminating the meaning of place and (...) the different “places” people get attached to. The paper concludes by incorporating different place frameworks with the intention of establishing a holistic model for understanding the various attributes and perceptions of people-place relationships and experiences. (shrink)

Fundamental to spatial knowledge in all species are the representations underlying object recognition, object search, and navigation through space. But what sets humans apart from other species is our ability to express spatial experience through language. This target article explores the language ofobjectsandplaces, asking what geometric properties are preserved in the representations underlying object nouns and spatial prepositions in English. Evidence from these two aspects of language suggests there are significant differences in the geometric richness with which objects and (...) places are encoded. When an object is named (i.e., with count nouns), detailed geometric properties – principally the object's shape (axes, solid and hollow volumes, surfaces, and parts) – are represented. In contrast, when an object plays the role of either “figure” (located object) or “ground” (reference object) in a locational expression, only very coarse geometric object properties are represented, primarily the main axes. In addition, the spatial functions encoded by spatial prepositions tend to be nonmetric and relatively coarse, for example, “containment,” “contact,” “relative distance,” and “relative direction.” These properties are representative of other languages as well. The striking differences in the way language encodes objects versus places lead us to suggest two explanations: First, there is a tendency for languages to level out geometric detail from both object and place representations. Second, a nonlinguistic disparity between the representations of “what” and “where” underlies how language represents objects and places. The language of objects and places converges with and enriches our understanding of corresponding spatial representations. (shrink)

The expression of attachment to the divine in certain places among different groups has been documented by anthropologists and sociologists for decades. However, the psychological processes by which this happens are not yet fully understood. This article focuses on the concept of ‘place spirituality’ as a psychological mechanism, which allows the religious believer or non-believer to achieve an organised attachment strategy, involving the interplay of place and spiritual attachment. First, place spirituality is considered as an experience that satisfies the attachment (...) relationship criteria in that geographic places and divine entities can be perceived as ‘objects’ of attachment. Second, it is proposed that the maturational aspects of the attachment repertoire in adults make the place spirituality experience possible since adults’ cognitive abilities are much wider than those of children and can include relationships to geographical spaces and invisible divine entities. Finally, the theme of place spirituality is explored to further position the concept as a relational paradigm for understanding the relationship between place experiences and spiritual attachment. (shrink)