ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we consider the kinds of semantic properties that are typically encoded as nouns. We begin with a survey of definitions of noun as a syntactic, semantic, and discourse category and observe that, universally, temporally stable phenomena, entities, surface as nouns. We then look at the nature and encoding of eight kinds of semantic properties of nouns/entities: specificity, boundedness, animacy, kinship, social status, physical structure, and function. For each, we look at a number of subclasses (e.g., humans, animals, and inanimates under animacy) and their semantic and structural ramifications in a variety of languages. Thereafter, we consider the theoretical problem of unifying the semantic properties of entities internally (in relation to each other via neutralization) and externally (in relation to perceptual and cognitive structure).
