GRAMMATICAL NUMBER.
Item
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Title
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GRAMMATICAL NUMBER.
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Identifier
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AAI8212189
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identifier
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8212189
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Creator
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ELLIOTT, W. NEIL.
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Contributor
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Robert Fiengo
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Date
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1982
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics
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Abstract
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The research contained in this thesis examines the phenomena associated with the expression of number in natural language. Its specific concern focuses on grammatical number, i.e., number expressed by morphological alternation in various syntactic categories.;I argue that grammatical number must be distinguished into two subtypes, inflectional and interpretive or semantic number. Inflectional number is identified with the morphological reflexes of the singular/plural distinction and exhibited in every category. Semantic number is identified by properties of identity and individuation, quantity and distributivity. It is shown that nominal and nonnominal categories alike share number-related properties in their interpretation. So, for example, while a plurally interpreted noun denotes more than one object and plurally interpreted verb denotes an iteration of action. However, inflectional number controls the assignment of interpretation for number only in nominal contexts, if it determines interpretive properties at all.;The balance of the thesis is devoted to describing the distribution of inflectional number in natural language. Three specific hypotheses are proposed. First, it is assumed that inflectional affixation occurs in the lexicon. However, the thesis is demonstrated to be inadequate in explaining the inflectional properties of certain exceptional classes of nouns which appear to be marked inherently for plurality. The second hypothesis concerns the phenomenon of agreement. I formalize the definition of agreement pairs and demonstrate that the rule relating agreement pairs operates within the locale of a case domain. That is, two agreeing constituents must be in the same case domain. The notion of case domain is defined in terms of a theory of case assignment which does not involve government. Finally, it is proposed that agreement is interpreted as coindexing in derivations to LF. By stipulating that one member of an agreement pair is an anaphor under the Binding Conditions proposed by Chomsky (1981), the obligatory character of agreement is explained.;I conclude that the distribution and interpretation of grammatical number is determined by the interaction of independently motivated components of transformational grammar.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Linguistics
