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Outline

Title
Abstract
Introduction
Related Work
Unexpected Results
Data Selection
Intermediate Summary
Corpus Study
Summary and Conclusion
Analysis
Vagueness Based Analysis of Eventualities
Summary
Conclusion and Future Research
References

On abstract nouns and countability

Profile image of Halima HusićHalima Husić

2020

https://doi.org/10.13154/294-7203
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232 pages

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Abstract

Die vorliegende Dissertation befasst sich mit der Zählbarkeit abstrakter Substantive, die in der Literatur zur Semantik von Substantiven kaum berücksichtigt wurden. Die Erforschung einer Teilmenge von Abstrakta anhand der Annotation von lexikalischen Merkmalen und einer gezielten Korpusstudie ermöglicht einen Einblick in das Sortenpotential dieser Nomina. Aus dieser Untersuchung lässt sich eine Reihe von Generalisierungen ableiten, anhand derer eine semantische Analyse der Zählbarkeit bei Ereignisnominalisierungen bereitgestellt wird. Das wesentliche Kriterium, das zählbare Ereignisse von nicht-zählbaren unterscheidet ist die Vagheit der Atome, die in Abhängigkeit zur Aktionsart des zugrundeliegenden Ereignisses bestimmt wird. Mit der Ausarbeitung der Zählbarkeit in Ereignissen stelle ich erste Anregungen für eine kompositionelle Analyse vor. Demzufolge trägt diese Ausarbeitung wesentlich zur Diskussion der Zählbarkeit und Ereignissemantik in der aktuellen Forschung bei.

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  140. 2 Extract from BECL 2.1 (Kiss et al., 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  141. 1 Distribution of abstract and concrete nouns in BECL . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  142. 2 Diversity of abstract nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  143. 3 Count and mass determiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  144. 1 A shortened and simplified entry in BECL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  145. 2 Six annotation questions accountable for the development of countability classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  146. 3 Countability classes in BECL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  147. 4 Countability classes in BECL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  148. 5 Target dataset extracted from BECL 2.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  149. 6 Distribution of WordNet categories in count and mass senses . . . . . . . . .
  150. 7 Annotation features and their description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  151. 8 Examples of annotated count senses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  152. 9 Examples of annotated mass senses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  153. 10 Qualities and States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  154. 11 Count and mass senses annotated as events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  155. 12 Placeholders in the annotated dataset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  156. 13 Resulting distribution of annotation features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  157. 1 Nouns with low frequencies in plural form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  158. 2 Nouns with high frequencies in plural form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  159. 3 Nouns that occur rarely with the indefinite article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  160. 4 Nouns that occur often with the indefinite article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  161. 5 Nouns that do not occur with many . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  162. 6 Nouns that do not occur with much . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  163. 7 Nouns that occur more frequently with much than with many . . . . . . . . .
  164. 8 Nouns that occur rather with many than with much . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  165. 1 Entries for cat in Merriam Webster, WordNet and Oxford Dictionary . . . . .
  166. 1 Comparison drawn on number of entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  167. 2 Comparison drawn on the volume/quantity of an entity . . . . . . . . . . . .
  168. 3 Input and output of the Universal Grinder: carrots and ground carrot . . . .
  169. 4 Relation of individuals and linguistic expression and portions of matter . . .
  170. Singulars, plurals and mass terms in a structured domain (cf. Chierchia, 1998a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  171. 6 An ordinary cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  172. 7 Some (perhaps incomplete) cats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  173. 8 Parts of cats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  174. 9 Semantic Triad (Chierchia, 2010: 116) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  175. 10 Illustration of the context dependent noun fence (cf. Rothstein, 2010: 355) . .
  176. 11 Mountains vs. Icebergs in Landman (2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  177. 12 The countability puzzle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  178. Asher's ontology of abstract objects (Asher, 1993: 57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  179. 2 Bach's typology of eventive nominals (Bach, 1986: 62) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  180. 3 Descriptive results of the lexical property annotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
  181. 1 Percentage share of the distribution with many and much . . . . . . . . . . . Halima Husić Curriculum Vitae Personal details Date of birth 27th July 1989 Place of birth Zvornik (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Education
  182. since July 2015 PhD Program in Computational Linguistics, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum. Title: "On Abstract Nouns and Countability. An Empirical Investigation into the Counta- bility of Eventuality Denoting Nominals". Dissertation Committee: Tibor Kiss, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Gennaro Chierchia, Agata Renans 2011 -2013 Master of Arts in Computational Linguistics, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum. Thesis: Definition eines Goldstandards für die Präpositionalanbindung in automatisierten Dependenzgrammatiken (A Goldstandard for PP-attachment in automated dependency grammars) 2008 -2011 Bachelor of Arts in Computational Linguistics and Oriental Studies, Ruhr- Universität, Bochum. Thesis: Die Semantik des Positivs (The Semantics of the Positive) 2004 -2008 Matura, Gazi Husrev-begova medresa, Sarajevo, Bosna i Hercegovina. Academic Employment since 2013 Research Assistant, Department of Linguistics, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum. 2014 -2018 in project "Accounting for the Foundations of Mass" (PI: Tibor Kiss and Francis Jeffry Pelletier) 2013 -2014 in project "Grammatische Analyse von Präposition-Substantiv- Sequenzen" (PI: Tibor Kiss)

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