A unified semantics for number marking, numerals, and nominal structure

Abstract

This paper develops a semantic account of morphological number in the presence of numerals. In addition to accounting for number on basic nouns like book in English, our approach extends to cover data from two seemingly disparate domains: 1) numbermarking on measure terms like kilo, which is determined by the numeral co-occurring with these terms: one kilo of apples vs. two kilos of apples; and 2) cross-linguistic variation in patterns of number marking: numerals greater than one obligatorily combining with plural-marked nouns (e.g., English), all numerals obligatorily combining with singular (unmarked) nouns (e.g., Turkish, Hungarian), and numerals optionally combining with either singular or plural nouns (e.g., Western Armenian). Building off the presuppositional approach to morphological number in Sauerland (2003), we show that all of the data considered receive an account once we assume variation in the selection of the measure relevant to the one-ness presupposition of the morphological singular form.