Boundedness (linguistics)

In linguistics, boundedness is a semantic feature that relates to an understanding of the referential limits of a lexical item. Fundamentally, words that specify a spatio-temporal demarcation of their reference are considered bounded, while words that allow for a fluidly interpretable referent are considered unbounded. This distinction also relies on the divisibility of the lexical item's referent into distinct segments, or strata. Though this feature most often distinguishes countability in nouns and aspect in verbs, it applies more generally to any syntactic category.