Counting on number: effects of number information on grammatical processing of mass and count nouns

ABSTRACT

Previous research has found an influence of semantic number (SINGLE, MULTIPLE) on grammatical processing of mass nouns in people with aphasia. This is the first study to investigate these effects in language-unimpaired individuals. In two experiments, participants had to decide which were the appropriate determiners (e.g. Experiment 1: a_{singularcount} – some_{mass/plural count}) for the name of mass and count noun pictures that were depicted either as single (one bulb of garlic_mass, one cat_count) or as multiple objects (three bulbs of garlic_mass, three cats_count). Semantic number congruency between depictions and determiners was manipulated for mass nouns. A semantic number congruency effect was found in both experiments with faster and more accurate determiner decisions in the number congruent (e.g. Experiment 1: MULTIPLE) compared to the number incongruent condition (e.g. Experiment 1: SINGLE). These results provide further evidence for an influence of semantic number information on lexical-syntactic processing of mass nouns.

KEYWORDS:

• Language
• semantic processing
• lexical-syntactic processing
• mass/count information

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Lyndsey Nickels http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0311-3524

Notes

1. In this article, we will refer to concepts, such as SINGLE and MULTIPLE in upper case.

2. Although there are no overall differences in imageability and naming agreement between count and mass noun items, it is possible that some mass noun items (e.g. rain, snow, water) are harder to depict and hence generated slower response times. However, we tried to address this issue in the best way possible by including a familiarisation phase (see section Design and Procedure below).

3. Arguments for a better method have been recently described in Zanini et al., 2016.

4. The design of our experiments resulted in an asymmetry between mass and count nouns with participants having to choose between two different determiners for count nouns (singular versus plural), while the determiner choice for mass nouns was always the same. It could be argued that this asymmetry may have influenced determiner decision latencies for count nouns. Such an influence should become visible by slower and/or less accurate determiner decisions for count nouns compared to mass nouns. However, in line with previous studies, our results showed faster response times and more accurate determiner decision responses for count nouns compared to mass nouns, as well as for singular count nouns compared to plural count nouns.

Additional information

Funding

During the preparation of this paper, Nora Fieder was funded by ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD) until April 2016 and subsequently by a postdoctoral stipend of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain. Lyndsey Nickels was funded by an ARC Future Fellowship [grant number FT120100102].