[FOM] Mass and count terms

[Dean Buckner]

The whole concept of a distinction between mass and count nouns was
introduced by the linguist Otto Jespersen (see for example his excellent and
interesting The Philosophy of Grammar London 1924).  Prior discusses
Jespersen's work in "Things and Stuff" in his Collected Papers in Logic and
Ethics (Duckworth, London 1976 181-86).

This was some time after Frege, and the development of mathematical logic.
As Davidson wryly points out, in none of the languages for which Tarksi
provides a definition of truth is it possible even to formulate the sentence

    "Snow is white" iff snow is white

let alone prove it (Prior p. 182).

(Because "snow" is a mass term, perhaps I should add).



Dean Buckner
London
ENGLAND

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