Boundedness (linguistics)

In linguistics, boundedness is a semantic feature that relates to an understanding of the referential limits of a lexical item.^[1] 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.^[2] Though this feature most often distinguishes countability in nouns and aspect in verbs, it applies more generally to any syntactic category.