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Sortal is a concept that has been used by some philosophers in discussing issues of identity, persistence and change. The simplest property of a sortal is that it can be counted, i.e. can take numbers as modifiers. For example, "pea" is a sortal in the sentence "I want two peas", whereas "water" is not a sortal in the sentence "I want water". Countability is not the only criterion. Thus "red thing" in the sentence "There are two red things on the shelf" is not treated as a sortal by some philosophers who use the term. There is disagreement about the exact definition of the term as well as whether it is applied to linguistic things (like predicates or words), abstract entities (like properties), or psychological entities (such as concepts). ==Differing perspectives== According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the sortal/nonsortal distinction can be characterized in at least six different ways. It is said that a sortal: *gives a criterion for counting the items of that kind *gives a criterion of identity and non-identity among items of that kind *gives a criterion for the continued existence of an item of that kind *answers the question "what is it?" for things of that kind *specifies the essence of things of that kind *does not apply to parts of things of that kind 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「sortal」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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