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LINGUIST List 20.3636

Wed Oct 28 2009

Qs: The 'Common Noun' Category

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        1.    Byeong-Uk Yi, The 'Common Noun' Category
Message 1: The 'Common Noun' Category
Date: 25-Oct-2009
From: Byeong-Uk Yi <b.yiutoronto.ca>
Subject: The 'Common Noun' Category
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I would appreciate it if anyone in the list would be kind enough to let me
know who:

(a) Coined the term 'common noun'
(b) Proposed the category of common noun (and how the proposal was accepted)

My main concern is on (b), while I would be interested in (a) as well,
especially if it is relevant to (b). I would suppose it is after Jespersen
distinguished mass and count nouns in his Philosophy of Grammar (1924) that
the common noun category, as we now understand it, has been proposed to
cover both kinds of nouns because the traditional category of general term
(as presented in, e.g., J. S. Mill) is not suitable for mass nouns. While
my focus is on the notion of the common noun in English, any references
related to a common noun category would be highly appreciated.

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics
Syntax

Subject Language(s): English (eng)
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