Abstract
Numeral phrases in Russian display many unusual morphosyntactic properties, e.g., (i) the numeral sometimes assigns genitive (GEN-Q) to the following noun and sometimes agrees with it and (ii) the numeral phrase sometimes induces subject-verb agreement and sometimes does not. In this paper existing analyses of these properties are parametrized to accommodate related phenomena in other Slavic languages. First, Babby's (1987) proposal that GEN-Q is structural in Russian is shown not to extend to Serbo-Croatian, where it must be analyzed as inherent. Second, Pesetsky's (1982) idea that Russian numeral phrases may be either QPs or NPs also does not extend to Serbo-Croatian, where these are only NPs. This set of assumptions explains a range of seemingly unrelated facts about the behavior of numeral phrases in the two languages. Pesetsky's analysis is recast in terms of more recent hypotheses about phrase structure: (i) NPs are actually embedded in DPs and (ii) subjects are D-Structure VP-specifiers. Proposal (i) allows for a more explanatory analysis of GEN-Q assignment and proposal (ii) accounts for several distinctions between QP and NP subjects within Russian, also motivating the absence of these distinctions in Serbo-Croatian. Finally, it is shown that Polish can be assimilated to the proposed system.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Abney, Steven: 1987,The English Noun Phrase in its Sentential Aspect, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Aoun, Joseph, Norbert Hornstein, David Lightfoot and Amy Weinberg: 1987, ‘Two Types of Locality’,Linguistic Inquiry 18, 537–577.
Avrutin, Sergey: 1992, ‘Movement of Bound Variables’,Third Leiden Conference for Junior Linguistics, Leiden, The Netherlands, pp. 1–16.
Babby, Leonard: 1980a, ‘The Syntax of Surface Case Marking’, in W. Harbert and J. Herschensohn (eds.),Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics 1, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University, pp. 1–32.
Babby, Leonard: 1980b,Existential Sentences and Negation in Russian, Karoma Publishers, Ann Arbor.
Babby, Leonard: 1984, ‘Case Conflicts and Their Resolution’, in W. Harbert (ed.),Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics 6, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University, pp. 1–21.
Babby, Leonard: 1985, ‘Prepositional Quantifiers and the Direct Case Condition’, in M. Flier and R. Brecht (eds.),Issues in Russian Morphosyntax, Slavica Publishers, Columbus, Ohio, pp. 91–117.
Babby, Leonard: 1986, ‘The Locus of Case Assignment and the Direction of Percolation’, in R. Brecht and J. Levine (eds.),Case in Slavic, Slavica Publishers, Columbus, Ohio, pp. 170–219.
Babby, Leonard: 1987, ‘Case, Pre-Quantifiers, and Discontinuous Agreement in Russian’,Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 5, 91–138.
Bailyn, John and Edward Rubin: 1991, ‘The Unification of Instrumental Case Assignment in Russian’,Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics 9, 99–126.
Baker, Mark: 1988,Incorporation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Bernstein, Judy: 1991, ‘DPs in French and Walloon’,Probus 3, 101–126.
Bogusławski, Andrzej: 1966,Semantyczne pojęcie liczebnika i jego morfologia w jęezyku rosyjskim, Ossolineum & PAN, Wrocław.
Borras, F. M. and R. F. Christian: 1971,Russian Syntax, 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Chomsky, Noam: 1981,Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht.
Chomsky, Noam: 1982,Some Concepts and Consequences of the Theory of Government and Binding, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chomsky, Noam: 1986a,Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use, Praeger, New York.
Chomsky, Noam: 1986b,Barriers, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chvany, Catherine: 1975,On the Syntax of BE-Sentences in Russian, Slavica Publishers, Columbus, Ohio.
Chvany, Catherine: 1986, ‘Jakobson's Fourth and Fifth Dimensions: On Reconciling the Cube Model of Case Meanings with the Two-Dimensional Matrices for Case Forms, in R. Brecht and J. Levine (eds.),Case in Slavic, Slavica Publishers, Columbus, Ohio, pp. 107–129.
Corbett, Greville: 1978, ‘Numerous Squishes and Squishy Numerals in Slavonic’, in B. Comrie (ed.),Classification of Grammatical Categories, Linguistic Research, Inc., Edmonton, pp. 43–73.
Corbett, Greville: 1979, ‘Adjective Movement’,Nottingham Linguistic Circular 8, 1–10.
Corbett, Greville: 1983,Hierarchies, Targets and Controllers: Agreement Patterns in Slavic, Pennsylvania University Press, University Park.
Crockett, Dina: 1976, ‘The distributivepo in Contemporary Russian’, in T. Magner (ed.),Slavic Linguistics and Language Teaching, Columbus, Slavica, pp. 153–163.
Dickey, Stephen: 1992, ‘Serbo-Croatian Distributivepo’, paper presented at the Midwest Slavic Conference, Columbus, OH.
Drovnikova, Larisa Nikolaevna: 1985,Istorija čislitel'nyx v russkom jazyke, Izd. Dal'nevostočnogo universiteta, Vladivostok.
Dyła, Stefan: 1984, ‘Across the Board Dependencies and Case in Polish,Linguistic Inquiry 16, 701–705.
Dziwirek, Katarzyna: 1990, ‘Default Agreement in Polish’, in K. Dziwirek, P. Farrell and E. Mejias-Bikadi (eds.),Grammatical Relations: A Cross-theoretical Perspective, CSLI, Stanford, pp. 147–163.
Dziwirek, Katarzyna: 1991,Aspects of Polish Syntax, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, UCSD.
Fasske, Helmut: 1987, ‘Bemerkungen zur Syntax quantifizierender Lexeme (am Beispiel des Sorbischen)’,Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 40, 82–91.
Fowler, George: 1987,The Syntax of the Genitive Case in Russian, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago.
Fowler, George: forthcoming, ‘Oblique Passivization in Russian’,Slavic and East European Journal.
Franks, Steven: 1985,Matrices and Indices: Some Problems in the Syntax of Case, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University.
Franks, Steven: 1986, ‘Case and the Structure of NP’, in R. Brecht and J. Levine (eds.),Case in Slavic, Slavica Publishers, Columbus, Ohio, pp. 220–243.
Franks, Steven: 1990, ‘On the Status of Null Expletives’,Lingua 81, 1–24.
Franks, Steven: 1993, ‘On Parallelism in Across-the-Board Dependencies’,Linguistic Inquiry 24, 509–529.
Franks, Steven: in press,Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax, Oxford University Press, New York.
Franks, Steven and Norbert Hornstein: 1992, ‘Secondary Predication in Russian and Proper Government of PRO’, in R. Larson, S. Iatridou, U. Lahiri and J. Higginbotham (eds.),Control and Grammar, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 1–50.
Freidin, Robert: 1992,Foundations of Generative Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Freidin, Robert and Leonard Babby: 1984, ‘On the Interaction of Lexical and Syntactic Properties: Case Structure in Russian’, in W. Harbert (ed.),Cornell Working Papers in Linguistics 6, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University, pp. 71–103.
Freidin, Robert and Rex Sprouse: 1991, ‘Lexical Case Phenomena’, in R. Friedin (ed.),Principles and Parameters in Comparative Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 392–416.
Giusti, Giuliana: 1991, ‘The Categorial Status of Quantified Nominals’,Linguistische Berichte 136, 438–454.
Greenberg, Gerald and Steven Franks: 1991, ‘A Parametric Approach to Dative Subjects and Second Datives in Slavic’,Slavic and East European Journal 35, 71–97.
Grimshaw, Jane: 1991, ‘Extended Projection’, ms., Brandeis University.
Halle, Morris: 1990, ‘An Approach to Morphology’,Northeast Linguistics Society XX, Graduate Students Linguistic Association, University of Massachussetts, Amherst, Massachussetts, pp. 150–184.
Jakobson, Roman: 1936/1971, ‘Beitrag zur allgemeinen Kasuslehre: Gesamtbedeutungen der russischen Kasus’,Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague VI, reprinted inSelected Writings II, Mouton, The Hague, 154–183.
Jakobson, Roman: 1958/1971, ‘Morfologičeskie nabljudenija nad slavjanskim skoneniem’, inAmerican Contributions to the IV International Congress of Slavists, reprinted inSelected Writings, II, Mouton, The Hague, 154–183.
Johnson, Kyle: 1991, ‘Object Positions’,Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9, 577–636.
Koopman, Hilda and Domioique Sportiche: 1988, ‘Subjects’, ms., UCLA.
Koopman, Hilda and Dominique Sportiche: 1991, ‘The Position of Subjects’,Lingua 85, 211–258.
Larson, Richard: 1985, ‘Bare NP Adverbs’,Linguistic Inquiry 16, 595–621.
Leko, Nedzad: 1987,Syntax of Noun Headed Structures in Serbo-Croatian and Corresponding Phrasal Structures in English, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.
Łojasiewicz, Anna: 1979, ‘O budowie wyrażeń z przyimkiem po dystrybutywnym’,Polonica 5, 153–160.
Mel'čuk, Igor': 1985,Poverxnostnyj sintaksis russkix čislovyx vyraženij, Wiener Slawischer Almanach Sonderband 16, Institut für Slawistik der Universität Wien, Vienna.
Neidle, Carol: 1982,The Role of Case in Russian Syntax, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Neidle, Carol: 1988,The Role of Case in Russian Syntax, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Ouhalla, Jamal: 1990, ‘Sentential Negation, Relativised Minimality and the Aspectual Status of Auxiliaries’,The Linguistic Review 7, 183–231.
Ouhalla, Jamal: 1991,Functional Categories and Parametric Variation, Routledge, London.
Padučeva, Elena: 1985,Vyskazyvanie i ego sootnesënnost' s dejstvitel'nost'ju, Nauka, Moscow.
Pesetsky, David: 1982,Paths and Categories, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Perlmutter, David: 1978, ‘Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis’,Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley, California, pp. 157–189.
Pullum, Geoffrey: 1988, ‘Citation Etiquette Beyond Thunderdome’,Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 6, 579–588.
Ritter, Elizabeth: 1991, ‘Two Functional Categories in Noun Phrases: Evidence from Modern Hebrew’, in S. Rothstein (ed.),Perspectives on Phrase Structure: Heads and Licensing, Syntax and Semantics 25, Academic Press, New York, pp. 37–62.
Rizzi, Luigi: 1990,Relativized Minimality, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sand, D. E. Z.: 1971,Agreement of the Predicate with Quantitative Subjects in Serbo-Croatian, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Schenker, Alexander: 1966,Beginning Polish, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Schenker, Alexander: 1971, ‘Some Remarks on Polish Quantifiers’,Slavic and East European Journal 15, 54–60.
Shlonsky, Ur: 1991, ‘Quantifiers as Functional Heads: A Study of Quantifier Float in Hebrew’,Lingua 84, 159–180.
Sigurðsson, Halldór: 1991, ‘Icelandic Case-marked PRO and the Licensing of Lexical Arguments’,Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9, 327–363.
Speas, Margaret: 1990,Phrase Structure in Natural Language, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Suprun, A. E.: 1959,O russkix čislitel'nix, Frunze, Kirgizskij gosudarstvennyj universitet.
Suprun, A. E.: 1963, ‘Zametki po sintaksisu pol'skix čislitel'nyx’,Pytannja slov'lansk'oho movoznavstva 7–8, 135–145.
Szabolcsi, Anna: 1991, ‘The Noun Phrase’, ms., UCLA.
Toman, Jindřich: 1992, ‘Kase as a Functional Projection’, ms., University of Michigan.
Travis, Lisa: 1984,Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT.
Valois, Daniel: 1991,The Internal Structure of DP, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA.
Williams, Edwin: 1980, ‘Predication’,Linguistic Inquiry 11, 203–238.
Zaenen, Annie, Joan Maling and Höskuldur Thráinsson: 1985, ‘Case and Grammatical Functions: The Icelandic Passive’,Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3, 441–483.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This work has been partially supported by a Mellon Summer Faculty Fellowship from the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University and a Mellon Faculty Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier versions were presented at the Colloquium on Recent Advances in Russian Linguistics in Ann Arbor in 1989 and the Formal Linguistics Society of Mid-America 1990 meeting. Some of the examples were gleaned from the popular (former) Yugoslav and Soviet presses, but most have been provided or corroborated by the following native speakers of Russian, Polish and Serbo-Croatian, respectively: Natasha Borovikova, Irina Gashurova, Natasha Kondrashova, Inna Ljaxovitskaja, Vadim Liapunov, Natasha Panteleyeva-Marion, Igor' Savelev, Vladimir Tumanov, Michael Yadroff and Katya Zubritskaya; Piotr Drozdowski, Katarzyna Dziwirek and Jerzy Kolodziej; Mirna Dickey, Marina Kovačević, Ljiljana and Dušan Progovac. I am indebted to these individuals as well as four anonymousNLLT reviewers for helpful suggestions and discussion of the data. As with any linguistically complex problem, these various sources were not always in complete agreement about the examples. I have accordingly tried to identify and explain discrepancies in judgments throughout. All responsibility for misrepresentation or misinterpretation of the data remains of course my own.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Franks, S. Parametric properties of numeral phrases in Slavic. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 12, 597–674 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992929
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992929