Home Linguistics & Semiotics Chapter 10. Interpreting reduplicated numerals in Old Ibero-Romance
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Chapter 10. Interpreting reduplicated numerals in Old Ibero-Romance

A syntactic account
  • Alice Corr
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Abstract

Old Ibero-Romance reduplicated numerals in transfer and possession constructions force a distributive reading at the sentential level (OSp. los pecheros deben tres tres meajas “the taxpayers owe threemeajaseach”). I argue that the distributive construction is best accounted for at the clausal level by an applicative structure (Pylkkänen 2008), where the reduplicated numeral is the internal argument and is encoded at the nominal level by a dedicated distributive layer in the extended functional structure. This analysis captures differences in the construction’s interpretation—a low ApplP for distribution over individuals, and a high ApplP for distribution over events—within a more general theory of event structure, and situates the distributive construction with a wider taxonomy of (independently-motivated) Ibero-Romance applicative structures.

Abstract

Old Ibero-Romance reduplicated numerals in transfer and possession constructions force a distributive reading at the sentential level (OSp. los pecheros deben tres tres meajas “the taxpayers owe threemeajaseach”). I argue that the distributive construction is best accounted for at the clausal level by an applicative structure (Pylkkänen 2008), where the reduplicated numeral is the internal argument and is encoded at the nominal level by a dedicated distributive layer in the extended functional structure. This analysis captures differences in the construction’s interpretation—a low ApplP for distribution over individuals, and a high ApplP for distribution over events—within a more general theory of event structure, and situates the distributive construction with a wider taxonomy of (independently-motivated) Ibero-Romance applicative structures.

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