The structure of Polish numerically-quantified expressions

Abstract

Cross-linguistically, numerically-quantified expressions vary in terms of their internal syntactic structure (e.g. the category of the numeral, its position in the nominal projection) as well as interaction with the external syntax (e.g. occurring in the subject positions, determining agreement and concord). Here, I investigate Polish numerically-quantified expressions of the 5+ type, such as pięć czarownic 'five witches', focusing on three morphosyntactic properties: the genitive case on the quantified noun, the accusative case on the numeral, and the occurrence of 3sg neuter verbal agreement. I argue that all of these properties can be captured within existing theories of case and agreement, in terms of a null head that takes the quantified noun phrase as its complement, and a numeral phrase as its specifier. Genitive on the noun is structural, accusative on the numeral is licensed by a null preposition, and default agreement is a result of the case-discriminating nature of verbal agreement. This proposal has implications for the broader theory of agreement and case assignment in Slavic languages and beyond.

Arabic Compound Numerals: New Insights on Case, Agreement, and Quantification

“…Languages 2024, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 coordination of two numerals along with two quantified nouns is not suitable. This seems in line with other studies that argue for the inadequacy of the nonconstitu analysis for languages like German, Dutch, Irish (Meinunger 2015), English (He and 2022), Mandarin Chinese (He 2015;He et al 2017), and Polish (Lyskawa 2020;W 2015).…”

“…Languages 2024, 9, x FOR PEER REVIEW 6 of 2 coordination of two numerals along with two quantified nouns is not suitable. This view seems in line with other studies that argue for the inadequacy of the nonconstituenc analysis for languages like German, Dutch, Irish (Meinunger 2015), English (He and He 2022), Mandarin Chinese (He 2015;He et al 2017), and Polish (Lyskawa 2020;Willim 2015).…”

“…Since the quantified noun is in the complement position in NQ 0 , it is beyond the influence of D which normally would cause this DP to take on the nominative Case. This phenomenon seems cross-linguistically valid (see, e.g., Rutkowski (2002) for Estonian, Willim (2015) and Lyskawa (2020) for Polish, and Pesetsky (2013) for Russian).…”

“…Despite the extensive study of individual numerals, compound numerals have received less attention in the literature (Ionin and Matushansky 2004, p. 101). Previous studies adopt two opposing approaches (Žoha et al 2022); some researchers (e.g., Lyskawa 2020;Willim 2015;He 2015;He and Her 2022) propose that compound numerals are constituents on their own, forming a single, unitary numerical expression that quantifies over the counted entity, whereas other researchers (e.g., Ionin and Matushansky 2004, 2006, 2018 argue that the two numerals within the compound numeral do not form a single constituent to the exclusion of the quantified noun; they exist in a coordination relationship in which each numeral independently modifies the counted entity.…”

“…Different Case assignments at different levels lead to distinct morphological realizations (Lyskawa 2020, p. 18). Inspired by Norris (2018) and Lyskawa (2020), the following proposal seems to hold in Arabic: assign structural accusative to a noun that is a complement of NQ 0 and does not have a lexical genitive Case value by the preposition when the NQP extended projection is complete.…”