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Needing the other: the anatomy of the Mass Noun Thesis

Argument (Kraków. 2011), 2014-06, Vol.4 (1), p.103-122 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

ISSN: 2083-6635 ;EISSN: 2084-1043

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  • Title:
    Needing the other: the anatomy of the Mass Noun Thesis
  • Author: Lajos L. Brons
  • Subjects: folk-ontology ; interpretation ; mass nouns ; numeral classifiers ; othering ; philosophy of anthropology ; philosophy of linguistics
  • Is Part Of: Argument (Kraków. 2011), 2014-06, Vol.4 (1), p.103-122
  • Description: 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.
  • Publisher: Pedagogical University of Krakow
  • Language: German
  • Identifier: ISSN: 2083-6635
    EISSN: 2084-1043
  • Source: DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals
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