Journal of Semantics: 1–42 doi:10.1093/jos/ffs009 Sortal, Relational, and Functional Interpretations of Nouns and Russian Container Constructions BARBARA H. PARTEE AND VLADIMIR BORSCHEV University of Massachusetts Abstract Among the semantic types that nouns can take on, functional types are the smallest class, and functional nouns are probably not a linguistically distinct subcategory, pace Lo ¨bner (1985). But there are some interesting constructions specific to functional nouns, of which we discuss three, devoting most attention to the third. The three are (i) parameter-headed NPs as modifiers in English, as in a dress that length (Partee 1986), (ii) a construction in Russian known as Genitive with Obligatory Third Term (Borschev & Knorina 1990), similar to English person of medium height, *person of height and (iii) Russian Genitive of Measure construction(s), illustrated by stakan moloka ‘glass of milk’, involving a quantity of substance contained in a container. We describe a series of meaning-shifts that lead from the concrete container-noun to its use as a pure (functional) measure term. The main theoretical concerns here are these meaning shifts and the question of how many distinct senses need to be recognized. We close with some observations on the relation between linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of the natural-language metaphysics of containers. 1 INTRODUCTION. SORTAL, RELATIONAL, AND FUNCTIONAL NOUNS Sebastian Lo ¨bner (1985, 1998) has drawn attention to some of the interesting properties of functional nouns. He divides nouns in natural language into four different basic semantic types, based on the two properties of inherent relationality and inherent uniqueness. His basic types are sortal nouns (cow)—neither relational nor unique; individual nouns (e.g. proper names)—non-relational but inherently unique; relational nouns (part)—relational but not unique; and functional nouns (size), both relational and unique. The starting point for this paper is the claim that functional nouns are one of the basic types of nouns. On the one hand, we are inclined to dispute that claim; we would argue that the basic types of nouns are sortal nouns, proper names and relational nouns, and for the most part, functional nouns are simply an accidental subclass of the relational Ó The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com. Journal of Semantics Advance Access published April 3, 2012 by guest on September 17, 2012 http://jos.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from