Doctoral Dissertation Research: Number and Individuation: Nominal Semantics in Dagaare

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Languages provide grammatical means to count and classify different entities in the world. In English, count nouns (dog, book) allow a singular/plural contrast and mass nouns (water, flour) do not. This project addresses how the meaning of a noun influences the ways in which number can be marked. Working under Dr. Beth Levin, Mr. Scott Grimm will explore these issues from the perspective of Dagaare, a Southern Gur language of Ghana which shows a typologically unusual pattern of number marking. Preliminary investigation of Dagaare indicates that multiple classes of nouns can be distinguished based on their pattern of number marking. English generally aligns things with count nouns and substances with mass nouns. Dagaare, with its different markers, isolates several other classes of entities, such as objects typically found in groups (insects) or those occurring as close-knit aggregates ('grass'). The prevalent number marking pattern in Dagaare involves a rare "polarity" marker, a suffix which marks the plural for some nouns ('dog') and the singular for others ('cockroach'). An additional marker designates "a piece of," forming 'a blade of grass' from 'grass.' While Dagaare shows different number marking patterns than English, both distinguish nouns according to the same broad facets of meaning, a noun's degree of "individuation." Mr. Grimm will work with speakers of Dagaare in Ghana to elicit information on nouns and their interaction with other areas of the grammar. Insights gleaned from Dagaare should reflect upon the underpinnings of the mass/count distinction in other languages, including English, and bear upon formal linguistic theories of mass, count and plural terms. While conducting his fieldwork, Mr. Grimm will collect materials, including texts and conversations, which will provide new resources on Dagaare. These materials will be valuable to educators, scholars and speakers of Dagaare and other Gur languages. Funding for this award is being provided by the Linguistics Program in the Division of Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences, and by the Africa, Near East, and South Asia Program in the Office of International Science & Engineering.