We present an analysis of measure phrases such as heap/ounce of information in
which the measure expression receives a non-literal, metaphorical interpretation. We present
evidence that these metaphorical measure expressions, as we call them, exhibit a puzzling incomplete countability pattern insofar as their grammatical reflexes fall between count and mass
nouns. We show that nouns/NPs with such an incomplete countability pattern are predicted by,
and are easily captured within, the theory of ...
We present an analysis of measure phrases such as heap/ounce of information in
which the measure expression receives a non-literal, metaphorical interpretation. We present
evidence that these metaphorical measure expressions, as we call them, exhibit a puzzling incomplete countability pattern insofar as their grammatical reflexes fall between count and mass
nouns. We show that nouns/NPs with such an incomplete countability pattern are predicted by,
and are easily captured within, the theory of the count/mass distinction presented in Sutton and
Filip (2019b, 2020).
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