countification
nounEtymology From count + -ification.
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Rare The conversion of a noncountable noun to a countable noun form.
- 1969, The Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian-English Contrastive Project With some mass and abstract nouns, "countification" is accompanied by a shift of meaning: paper (SC papir) vs. a paper (SC novine, dokument)...
- The use of A with GRAIN gives the class membership of the item and illustrates the "countification" of mass nouns, with the deletion of the understood "type(s) of."1995, Marilyn Martin, “Article question redux”, in bit.listserv.tesl-l (Usenet):
1 more example
- The countification of e-mail mirrors some other recent developments in tech-talk.2010 May 24, Ben Zimmer, New York Times:
- Related terms
- countify