COUNTABILITY: COUNT AND NON-COUNT NOUNS
English obliges us to make a distinction with regard to how a referent is cognitively perceived: whether as a discrete, countable entity, such as cow, or as an indivisible, non- countable ‘mass’ entity, such as beef.
Other languages make a count–mass distinction, but we must never assume that particular items are conceptualized and lexicalized in the same way in different languages. News, for instance, is a singular mass noun in English (the news is good); *one news, *a news, *many news are ungrammatical.
Note that we use the terms ‘non-count’ and ‘mass’ without distinction, as both are in common use.
A count noun is basically one whose referent can be counted, as in one cow, two cows, but not *one beef, *two beefs. The referents of these nouns are viewed as individuated things or persons. The following count nouns include both regular plurals in -s and invariable or ‘zero’ plurals:
A non-count noun is one whose referent is cognitively perceived as not countable. We don’t say, for example *three furnitures, *one luggage. Both furniture and luggage, as well as news can be individuated by a preceding ‘counter’ – ‘a piece of’ – as explained shortly.
