Tagging mass vs count nouns in FLEx

[Eric Jackson]

Hello, again! Following Andy's suggestion, I'm starting this as a new topic. I didn't see anything that applied directly in the history of the group, and I haven't found anything on the topic in the FLEx help fils, so here it goes.

Is there an intended way to tag mass nouns versus count nouns in FLEx? This seems like it should be part of a Sense bundle in an entry, since a single entry might have a sense with an interpretation as a count noun, and might also have a sense where it is interpreted as a mass noun. There are no fields related to grammatical features within a Sense, other than the Grammatical Info field, which points to a part of speech category. Does this mean that the most straightforward way to indicate the mass vs count distinction for nouns would be to 

(1) create a custom inflection feature for "countability", with say values of "count" and "mass" (or "uncountable") (Grammar > Inflection features > (add new) Feature... > "Create a custom inflection feature")

(2) create a custom subtype of the Noun category (Grammar > Category edit > select Noun > (add new) Subcategory... > "Create a custom category", let's name it Mass Noun and abbreviate it Nmass), and for that custom subcategory of nouns under Features > Inflectable features, add the new countability feature

For the entry for mass nouns, then, they would then be marked as "Nmass", and we could say that Nmass words could not occur with a plural morpheme (a morpheme with an inflectable feature Plural) when parsing...?

Has anyone done something like this? Or is there a better / more-appropriate-for-FLEx way to do this?

Warmly,

Eric

Eric Jackson

Removing technical barriers to language development for data-scarce language communities

LinkedIn  |  Academia.edu  |  GitHub

[Kevin Warfel]

A different way to accomplish what I'm understanding you to be wanting would be to create subcategories of Noun (e.g., Mass, Count), then create an Affix Template for Count Noun that includes the plural affix. Since Mass Noun would then not have a template that allows the plural affix, the parser would reject a combination of the plural affix with a Mass Noun stem.

Kevin Warfel 

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[Andy Black]

On 8/7/2025 2:08 PM, Eric Jackson wrote:

... There are no fields related to grammatical features within a Sense, other than the Grammatical Info field, which points to a part of speech category...

Two clarifications here:

1. If you click on the Show Hidden Fields checkbox, then you'll see that there are other fields (besides Category) under Grammatical Info. Details.
2. It is possible for an entry to have two or more senses each of which can refer to the same or different sets of Grammatical Info. Details.  That is, we separated out senses from Grammatical Info. Details so that you can have more than one sense referring to the same set of Grammatical Info. Details.  Suppose, you have three senses: A, B, and C and two Grammatical Info. Details: X and Y.  You can then make the entry have senses A and C refer to X and sense B refer to Y (or other such combinations). 

--Andy

Warmly,

Eric

Eric Jackson

Removing technical barriers to language development for data-scarce language communities

LinkedIn  |  Academia.edu  |  GitHub

[Eric Jackson]

Thank you, Kevin and Andy. This is all helpful!

--Eric