Trapped between case and number. A typology of adnumerative forms

Roncero, Kristian (2025): Trapped between case and number. A typology of adnumerative forms. In: Studia Linguistica, Bd. 79, Nr. 1: S. 215-257

Abstract

In this paper, I study the nature of adnumerative or numerative forms; i.e. morphologically dedicated inflectional forms that can only be used with numerals or quantifiers (e.g. Russian dva časá ‘two o'clock’ vs. [gen sg] čása). Adnumeratives are cross-linguistically very rare; yet they raise some interesting theoretical discussions. This work is based on the framework of Canonical Typology, which assumes the existence of a handful of discrete and cross-linguistically recurrent morphosyntactic features. Nevertheless, adnumerative forms present a challenge to that distribution, because, as I argue, adnumeratives lie between case and number values. This might well represent a theoretically undesirable scenario, and thus, be diachronically unstable. However, the data I have gathered prove that there are adnumerative forms that have survived in this penumbra for centuries and one can also adduce more evidence of diachronically stable cross-linguistic phenomena between two feature values (e.g. the anterior). Therefore, I propose that this theoretical space may not be as dark previously depicted and I ask questions for further exploration.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Department 2 > Slavische Philologie
• Themengebiete: 800 Literatur > 800 Literatur, Rhetorik, Literaturwissenschaft
• ISSN: 0039-3193
• Sprache: Englisch