tællbar

Tællbar is a linguistic term used to describe nouns and other entities that can be counted individually. The concept is employed in descriptive grammars and language-typology discussions to distinguish items that admit discrete numeration from those that do not. In many analyses, tællbar items are contrasted with mass or non-countable items, which are typically not counted in units without a specified measure (for example, water or sand in bulk).

Etymology and usage: The name tællbar is formed from elements meaning to count and the sense of “able,” signaling that the item can be enumerated. In languages that mark number or use numeral quantifiers, tællbar nouns commonly participate in numeral constructions, plural agreement, and determiner placement. By contrast, non-tællbar or mass nouns often require different quantificational strategies, such as measure phrases (three liters of water) or classifiers in some languages.

Cross-linguistic relevance: The exact criteria for counting feasibility vary by language. Some grammars treat countability as a property of the noun’s semantics, while others tie it to syntactic behavior, determiner compatibility, or numeral syntax. The tællbar distinction informs teaching, lexicography, and natural language processing, where identifying countable versus non-countable readings affects article use, quantifier selection, and pluralization rules.

See also: countable noun, mass noun, numeral phrase, quantifier, grammatical number.