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<Paper uid="C94-1002">
  <Title>Countability and Number in Japanese to English Machine Translation</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="32" end_page="33" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Countability
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"/>
    <Section position="1" start_page="32" end_page="32" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
2.1 Noun Phrase Countability
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> We adopt the definition of countability in English given in Allan (1980:541-3). A countable noun phrase is defined as follows: I If the head constituent of an NP falls within the scope ofa denumerator it is countable.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> II If the head constituent of an NP is plural it is countable.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> Where &amp;quot;the phrase 'fiflls within tile scope \[or domain\] of a denumerator' means 'is denumerated' by it; i.e tim NP reference is quantiffed by the denumerator as a number of discrete entities.&amp;quot; Not all nouns in English can become the head of a countable noun phrase. In particular, noun phrases whose heads fall within the scope of a denumerator ('denumerated' noun phrases) must be headed by a noun that has both singular and plural forms. Nouns that do not have both forms, like equipment or scissors, require a classifier to be used. The classifier becomes the head of a countable noun phrase with the original noun attached as the complement of a prepositional phrase headed by of.. a pair of scissors, a piece oJ&amp;quot; equipment.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> Whether a noun can be used to head a countable noun plu'ase or not depends both on how it is interpreted, and on its inherent countability preference. Noun countability preferences are discussed ill the next section.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="32" end_page="33" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
2.2 Noun Countability Preferences
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> A noun's countability preference determines how it will behave in different environments.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> We classify nouns into seven countability preferences, live major and two minor, as described below.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> The two most basic types are 'fully cotmtable' and 'uncountable'. Fully countable nouns, such as knife have both singular and plural forms, and cannot be used with determiuers such as mttclt. 2 Uncotmtable nouns, such as Jiirniture, have no plural form, and can be used with much.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> Between these two extremes there are a vast number of nouns, such as cake, that can be used in both countable and uncountable noun phrases. They have both singular and plural forms, and can also be used with much. Whether such nouns will be used countably or uncountably depends on whether their referent is being thought of as made up of discrete units or not. As it is not always possible to explicitly determine this when translating from Japanese to English, we divide these nouns into two g,'oups: 'strongly countable', those that are more often used to refer to discrete entities, such as cake, and 'weakly countable', those that are more often used to refer to unbounded referents, such as beer.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> The last major type of countability preference is 'phlralia tanta': nouns that only have a phn'al form, such as scissors. They can neither be denumerated nor modilied by much. We further subdivide pluralia tanta into two types, those that can use the classifier pair to be de~ numerated, such as a pair of scissors and those that can't, such as clothes. 'pair' pluralia tanta have a singular lorm when used as modifiers (a scissor movement). Pluralia tanta such as clothes, use the plural form even as modifiers (a clothes horse), and need a countable word of similar meaning to be substituted when they are denumerated: a garment, a suit .....</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> The two minor types are subsets of flflly countable and uncountable nouns respectively. Unless explicitly indicated, they will be treated the same as their supersets. 'Collective' nouns share all the properties of fully countable nouns, in addition they can have singular or plural verb agreement with the singular form of tile noun: The government has/trove decided. 'Semi-countable' nouns share the properties of uncountable nouns, except that they can be modiffed directly by alas; for example a knowledge l of.lapanese\].</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="7"/>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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