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Is this sentence correct?

"...in addition to frustrating other instinctive and comfort behaviours."

Or should it be "behaviour"?

Read this somewhere: “The dictionary says it is both countable and uncountable:

  1. (uncountable) the way that someone behaves.
  2. (countable) a particular way of behaving.”

As per the above, "behaviours" should be correct.

Ron
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  • What is the entire sentence? And note, behavior could be used. – Arm the good guys in America Mar 03 '17 at 21:45
  • This depends. Are you talking, collectively about behavior qualified as "instinctive and comfort", or about two different behaviors: "instinctive behavior" and "comfort behavior"? – Davo Mar 03 '17 at 21:46
  • With "other", you do need "behaviours" (or "behaviors") to be in the plural. – Gustavson Mar 03 '17 at 22:18
  • The answer to your body question is probably "No; 'instinctive behaviours' does not coordinate well with 'comfort behaviours'; compare *'wooden and steering wheels'. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 03 '17 at 22:32
  • Here is the entire sentence:"Intensive animal farming, in order to minimize costs and maximize profits, condemns farm animals to a miserable, unnatural crowded existence, denying them the freedom to turn around, groom, get up, lie down, stretch limbs, walk, be part of a family or herd, in addition to frustrating other instinctive and comfort behaviours." instinctive and comfort are two different behaviours - this answers the question I guess. – Ron Mar 03 '17 at 22:53
  • @Ron The text seems to convey that there are other instinctive behaviourS as well as other comfort behaviourS which are harmed by intensive animal farming. – Gustavson Mar 03 '17 at 23:23
  • @EdwinAshworth In my opinion, if both noun phrases exist with "behaviours" as head, I don't see why they should not be connected. The fact that "comfort" is an attributive noun does not make it ineligible as a modifier in coordination with an adjective (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_behaviour_in_animals). They are different types of behaviours. No such semantic relationship exists between "wooden wheels" and "steering wheels" -- the proper phrase in that case would most probably be "wooden steering wheels". – Gustavson Mar 03 '17 at 23:29
  • @Gustavson 'The fact that "comfort" is an attributive noun does not make it ineligible as a modifier in coordination with an adjective.' I've actually pointed out this point in an earlier thread. The trouble here is that 'comfort behaviours' and 'instinctive behaviours' are not on the same hierarchical level, and doubtless overlap to some extent, resulting in a classification error here. Compare 'flightless and large birds', being aware that 'instinctive and comfort behaviours' cannot mean a doubly-qualified single set, unlike the example with two adjectives (large flightless birds). – Edwin Ashworth Mar 04 '17 at 00:12
  • ... The relevant thread was 'black and lab' mouse using coordinated adjectives and attributive nouns. But the exceptions are very rare. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 04 '17 at 00:21
  • A better example is 'Animals exhibit a wide range of instinctive and learned behaviours ...' [bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science...]. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 04 '17 at 00:32
  • @EdwinAshworth Very interesting. Thank you. Only now do I see your point: innate/instinctive vs. learned/acquired. We'd need a vet or a biologist here to confirm whether comfort behaviours are instinctive or not. Even if they were instinctive, I think putting a more general (instinctive) and a more particular (comfort) attribute of a similar kind together would not be so bad as mixing other more inconsistent features. – Gustavson Mar 04 '17 at 01:07
  • A noun only qualifies as a count noun if the entity can be counted, i.e. it can combine with the cardinal numbers "one, two, three etc"; thus it can only be non-count in In "His behaviour was unacceptable" since you can't say *"His three behaviours were unacceptable". So ask yourself if can you really say "two comfort behaviours"? I think the answer to that question is no, so the answer to your question is no! – BillJ Mar 04 '17 at 11:39
  • @BillJ I don't think that 'instinctive and learned behaviours' is ungrammatical even though adding numerals here wouldn't be idiomatic. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 04 '17 at 12:30
  • Thank you all for your inputs. @Gustavson Yes – the text conveys that there are other behaviours which we may or may not be aware of. Most animal behaviour (including comfort behavior) is instinctive, but some might just be acquired. – Ron Mar 04 '17 at 16:57
  • include the research you’ve done. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 10 '18 at 16:31

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