Linguistic Methods of Analysis for the Determination of the Count-/mass Noun Distinction and Collective Nouns in German and Turkish

Linguistic methods of analysis that allow a categorial classification on the basis of morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria are used for the determination of the count-/mass-noun distinction and collective nouns. The purpose of this study is to clarify whether such categorial assignments are also possible for the German and Turkish language. In the first part of the paper, explanations of some terms ("count nouns", "mass nouns" and "collective nouns") are given. Following up, a categorial classsification of German and Turkish nouns is attempted within the context of the enlisted linguistic methods of analysis (morphological criterion ("quantity plural"T1, "element affinity" T2); syntactic criterion (“use in numeral or measurement constructions" T3, "count nouns not without determinator in NP function (or [_] NP context" T4, "element attribute” or “genitive attribute" T5, "element specification apposition" T6); semantic criterion ("sortal plural" T7) (cf. Kuhn, 1982, s. 84-97). As the basis of the categorical assignments, the differentiations in German are taken into consideration and compared with the corresponding phenomena in Turkish. Unlike German, the Turkish language, however, has a special feature that "reflects a different morphosyntactic implementation of 'multiplicity' in the use of plural forms" (cf. Johanson und Rehbein, 1999, s. vii-xx und translated by N. D.). This peculiarity of the Turkish language is assigned to the linguistic phenomenon "transnumerality". In the languages of the world, there is, besides the marking of the grammatical category number, also a pattern according to which there is no number agreement within the noun phrase. Accordingly, German belongs to the first type of number use, in that it has multiple markings for the plural forms, whereas Turkish can be assigned to the second type. The overarching principle in the grammatical expressions of the Turkish language seems to be the concept of economy, according to which morphological economy is ranked higher than semantic transparency (cf. Ortmann, 2002)