The Syntax of Number Markers

Abstract

This chapter explores the syntactic significance of number marking based on distributional, formal, and interpretive properties and its parameters of variation. On the basis of these properties, various syntactic analyses of number marking are evaluated. The hypothesis that number marking is hosted in a functional category NumP is introduced and it is shown that it can account for some, but crucially not all, of the properties of number marking. However, the assumption that number marking associates with a functional category, does not imply that it will associate with the same functional category across all languages, nor that it will associate in the same way. Diagnostics are provided to identify where and how on the nominal spine a given number marker associates.