The role of gender in the rise of numerals as a separate category

Authors

  • Katarzyna Miechowicz-Mathiasen
  • Dominika Dziubała-Szrejbrowska

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18148/hs/2012.v1i1.1

Keywords:

numerals, virile, gender, numeralisation

Abstract

This paper presents evidence concerning the trigger of numeralization of Polish higher numerals based on diachronic facts pertinent to their development. We focus on the reasons behind this process and argue that it resulted from a combination of two historical facts: (i) the development of the category of animacy/personhood/masculinity, in particular masculine personal, and (ii) its grammaticalisation via the introduction of a new Acc/Gen syncretism into the paradigms of masculine animate and masculine personal nouns. We propose that the developing new gender distinction in the plural constituted the trigger for numeralization of the nominal numerals which shifted from NP to NumP and as lexicalizations of NumP they began spelling out the gender information it introduced. As a result of this process, numerals have lost their own nominal properties (?-features: number, gender), and formed a separate category with its own new declension.

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Published

2017-06-04