The Acquisition of Count-mass Distinction of English Flexible Nouns by Chinese-Speaking Learners of English

Abstract

In recent years, count-mass distinction has attracted increasing attention from both domestic and overseas researchers. This study investigated the acquisition of English count-mass distinction by Chinese-speaking learners of English, focusing on flexible nouns (e.g., stone/stones, cake/cakes). A Quantity Judgment Task (QJT) was utilized in which learners judged the one with a greater number of entities as more than the one with greater volume or vice versa.

Results showed that Chinese college English learners correctly based judgments on number (e.g., judging three small apples as more than one big apple, or three small glasses of juice as more than one big glass of juice) for count nouns and object-mass nouns and on volume (e.g., judging one big apple as more than three small apples, or one big glass of juice as more than three small glasses of juice) for substance-mass nouns. In terms of nouns that can either be count or mass (flexible nouns, e.g., stone/stones), learners had difficulty using count-mass cues to disambiguate the meanings.