This paper examines how the lexical semantics of PC nouns effects predication and gradability in Telugu. Three PC noun classes are proposed based on differences in predication. The diagnostics from comparison and gradability further strengthen this claim. The basis for all these differences, it is claimed, is rooted in the lexical semantics of the PC nouns, with one class denoting portions of substances and another class denoting relations between individuals and portions of substances, and the third class allowing a type-shift from one denotation to the other. The framework adopted for analyzing these PC nouns is the model-theoretic mereological structure of abstract mass proposed by Francez and Koontz-Garboden (2013).
In spite of the differences in predication and comparison, it is shown that the encoding of all the three classes of PC terms as nouns makes mixed comparatives and equatives possible, because of the type-theoretic match which in turn results from all of the classes being based on a common semantics of substance. This further strengthens the correlation between nominal categorization and a lexical semantics of abstract mass for PC terms proposed in Jenks et al. (2013).