Collective nouns, aggregate nouns, and superordinates

Abstract

‘Part of’ and ‘kind of’ relations in the lexicon have been matter of some linguistic research, but strangely enough, they have only rarely been investigated together. Strangely, since ‘part of’ and ‘kind of’ appear to be similar in a number of respects, and since nouns such as furniture or bétail combine both ‘part of’ and ‘kind of’ readings. As a consequence, linguistic terminology in this specific domain has been lacking in uniformity and transparency. This article aims to bring terminological clarity: it offers a rough survey of the entire ‘part of/kind of’ spectrum and pleads for an unambiguous linguistic metalanguage that distinguishes between collective nouns (e.g. team), aggregate nouns (e.g. furniture), and superordinates (e.g. vehicle). Arguments for the terminological distinctions proposed can be found in a thorough investigation of lexical form-meaning relationships.