Modifier-numeral word order in the English NP: An FDG analysis

5.1 Scope of the modifier

As mentioned in Section 2, some previous accounts (e.g. Keenan 2013, Halliday and Matthiessen 2014) mention the fact that prenumeral adjectives can either modify the noun or the numeral. This observation is supported by examples from the sample, as shown in the following examples:

• (11) (a) It’s been a fabulous two years for me at Leeds and the lack of goals has been my only disappointment. (BYU-BNC, news) (= (1a))

•   (b) These seemingly harmless four words are repeated several times to form the lyric ‘As clouds roll by for you and I.’ (BYU-BNC, news) (= (1e))

• (12) (a) Whitham, 26, from Huddersfield, left the opposition well behind on his Yahama, winning the first 36-mile race by almost five seconds and the second by a crushing 10 seconds. (BYU-BNC, news)

•   (b) And while pollution incidents for 1991–92 reached an all-time high of 29,524 (National River Authority figures), there were a meagre 536 prosecutions. (BYU-BNC, news)

In (11), the adjectives denote properties of the noun; in (11a), it is the years that were fabulous, and in (11b), it is the words that are seemingly harmless; the attribution of the property in question does not depend on the number in question. In (12), on the other hand, the adjectives crushing and meagre do not modify the nouns but comment on the number, either positively, as in (12a), or negatively, as in (12b).

However, there seems to be a third possibility, where the adjective modifies the combination of numeral and noun. Consider the following examples:

• (13) (a) But much has happened in that short fourteen months since the general election. (BYU-BNC, scripted speech) (= (1c))

•   (b) The plane was a JU52 with its famous three engines and corrugated metal skin. (BYU-BNC, fiction)

•   (c) The inevitable two cups of tea appeared and Kathleen sat down. (BYU-BNC, fiction)

In (13a), the adjective short clearly does not modify the noun (it is not the months that were short) but neither does it seem to comment exclusively on the numeral: the number 14 is not short either. Rather, the adjective denotes a property of the combination of numeral and noun: 14 months is considered a short period of time. Similarly, in (13b), it is not so much the engines that are famous, but the fact that there are three of them, while in (13c), what is inevitable is not just the fact that tea was served, but the fact that it was two cups.

5.2 Type of modifier

As shown in Table 3, Mod-Num NPs accept almost any kind of premodifier.

There is no direct relation between the type of modifier and its scope: descriptive modifiers can scope over the numeral (example (14a)), the noun (example (14b)), or numeral and noun (example (14c)):

• (14) (a) They include Documenta Portrats, an impressive 170 portraits of participating artists taken during the installation of their works. (BYU-BNC, pop lore)

•   (b) In Atlanta the score of young blacks who have disappeared join the unlucky 13 women from Yorkshire in swelling the total. (BYU-BNC, religion)

•   (c) ‘Mila III’ is powered with MTU 6V395TB93 diesels, 2–40 KW Northern Lights generator sets, and cruises at a comfortable 17 knots. (BYU-BNC, advert)

Modal adjectives typically scope over the combination of numeral and noun, as in the case of the deontic adjective inevitable in (13c) above, or the objective epistemic adjective possible in (15a); in the latter example, it is the whole group denoted by the numeral and noun (three hundred days) that is described as being possible (= available). In (15b), on the other hand, possible is used subjectively, indicating an estimation of the number, and as such scopes over the numeral only. Finally, in (15c), the evidential adjective obvious modifies the characters Romeo and Juliet (as obvious choices).

• (15) (a) it’s in use for sixty-four days out of a possible three hundred. (BYU-BNC, public debate)

•   (b) Another 95 were being axed in 51 schools, with a possible 90 further redundancies in the pipeline. (BYU-BNC, news)

•   (c) So let’s have about six different characters, before we do it I’d like you need drafting books, just to think of a few questions that you would ask the characters. So let’s have the obvious two, Romeo and Juliet. (BYU-BNC, classroom)

In some cases, however, the use of a particular type of modifier is restricted to one particular scope. Intensifying, downtoning, and amplifying modifiers, for instance, always only take the numeral in their scope (as in example (12)).

The sample also included some instances of subsective prenumeral adjectives, a possibility denied by Marušič and Žaucer (2013). An example is given in (16), where a caller (John) phones in to a radio show to ask a question of one of the expert guests, whom he refers to as an ideal two academics. Given the context, it seems reasonable to assume that the adjective ideal is not used to denote a property of the two individuals (whom the caller does not know personally), but of their expertise as academics:

1. GUEST: Well you were just talking about children erm my feeling is that we’re all children, there is no division between being a child and an adult and I think that they can accept a whole lot, but there’s a whole lot of adults that can’t accept the shocks that are happening today and they put them into their subconscious and unfortunately it comes out in so many other ways – it comes over as a neurosis or as a mental disorder at some later date …. HOST: All right. Well John is on the line, joining us from Witney. Hello, John. JOHN: Oh, good afternoon, Bill. HOST: Your views. JOHN: Well Well I’ve brought the subject up before, but I think you’ve got an ideal two academics there that might be able to answer a question, a very practical one. (BYU-BNC, broadcast discussion)

Moreover, the examples provided here also show that, contrary to what was claimed by Marušič and Žaucer (2013), prenumeral adjectives can be restrictive or non-restrictive. In (15c), for instance, obvious is used restrictively: the suggestion is that there are other pairs of characters that are not obvious. In (11b), on the other hand, the four words referred to have already been identified, and the property seemingly harmless is merely added here, as a non-restrictive modifier. The same seems to be true for the examples in (13): in (13b), for instance, the adjective famous does not restrict the set of engines, which consisted of three to start with (the plane in question has only one set of engines); as such providing famous with contrastive stress would be inappropriate (as there are no other sets of (three) engines that the set denoted can contrast with). Contrastive stress would, however, be acceptable in (15c), where Romeo and Juliet are clearly distinguished from other, less obvious, (sets of) characters. In other cases, modal adjectives are used non-restrictively, as in (15a), where the contrast is between the (actual) 64 days and the possible 300 days, not between different sets of 300 days.

As for the distinction between stage-level (temporary) and individual-level (permanent), it is indeed true that most prenumeral adjectives favour a stage-level interpretation (which seems to be generally the case for premodifiers in English). Individual-level adjectives, however, are not excluded, as shown in examples (17a) and (17b), where nameless and traditional can only be interpreted as denoting permanent properties.

• (17) (a) Damned if the foundation could have this picture; she’d give them the nameless three condemned as undisciplined talent. (BYU-BNC, fiction)

•   (b) We lined up on the foredeck to give the traditional three cheers for her Majesty at the appropriate moment. (BYU-BNC, commerce)

This^[6] shows not only that non-restrictive and individual-level modifiers can be used prenumerally, but also that there is no direct relation between their (non-)restrictiveness and the type of modifier. The only exceptions in this respect are, again, the intensifying, downtoning and amplifying modifiers, which are always used non-restrictively.

5.3 Gradability of the modifier

This factor was included as a means of finding out whether the prenumeral position is restricted in terms of the kinds of modifiers it allows. Although both gradable and non-gradable adjectives were found to occur in the prenumeral position, it turned out that the gradable adjectives were all representational and were possible with any of the three scopes described in Section 5.1. All the interpersonal modifiers listed in Table 3 turned out to be non-gradable and were only found to scope over the numeral.

5.4 Modification of the modifier

This factor was also included as a way of identifying different types of modifiers. The sample included 27 cases where the prenumeral modifier was itself modified; the adverbs in question are listed in Table 4.

All of the 27 modified modifiers were representational in nature, and all but one descriptive. The only exception was the modal adjective unnecessary in (18).

1. The fact that a man was prepared to drive a completely unnecessary 1,000 miles struck me as indicative that the sanctions were not working. (BYU-BNC, biography)

5.5 Form of the modifier

The possible values for the form of the modifier were adjective (normative, comparative, and superlative), past participle, and present participle. The overall numbers are given in Table 5.

As to be expected, the normative adjectives formed by far the largest group. They can be found with each of the types of modifiers and can have any of the three scopes. Comparative adjectives can be found with most representational types of modifiers (descriptive, temporal, and spatial). In most cases, comparative adjectives modify the noun (10 out of 16 instances; see (19a)); they can, however, also scope over the numeral (as in (19b)) or the combination of numeral and noun (as in 19c)):

• (19) (a) The industries do not depend on one another, nor on the larger five basic industries. (BYU-BNC, non-acad)

•   (b) The number of full committees were being reduced from the two or three dozen common in the early 1960s to a more manageable fifteen or sixteen. (BYU-BNC, acad)

•   (c) who won the 100 in 12.1 seconds and 200 metres in an even better 24.1 seconds. (BYU-BNC, news)

Superlatives can also be found with all representational types of modifiers, but, in the current sample at least, scope either over the noun or over the combination of numeral and noun. The participles attested were typically descriptive, with some modal instances (permitted, required, stipulated). Past participles were found to scope over the combination of numeral and noun, present participles over just the noun.

5.6 Presence of a second modifier

This factor was included to find out whether the modifier–numeral order imposes any restrictions on the availability of other modifier positions. In all, 22 additional modifiers were found in 21 examples. The modifiers are listed in Table 6.

In some cases, the modifiers were coordinated and of the same type (example (20a)); in other cases, they were stacked (example (20b)):

• (20) (a) She herself had spent a distressing and hectic ten minutes in Rose Lipman’s office helping to remove Dawn’s costume and button her into her street clothes. (BYU-BNC, fiction)

•   (b) It’s been an emotional, turbulent four months. (BYU-BNC, pop lore)

In those cases where the additional modifier followed the numeral, it tended to be classifying, as in (21):

1. It cannot be compared with the “big six” national brewers (Allied, Bass, Courage, Watneys, Whitbread, and Scottish and Newcastle). (BYU-BNC, commerce)

5.7 Form of the determiner

The following kinds of determiners were found in the Mod-Num NPs in the sample: the definite and indefinite articles, demonstratives, possessives, genitives, and quantifiers. As can be seen from Table 7, the indefinite article was particularly frequent, despite the presence of a plural numeral and noun.

An examination of the sample shows that prenumeral modifiers preceded by an indefinite, singular determiner can have any of the three scopes: in (22a), meagre modifies the numeral, in (22b), fabulous modifies the noun, and in (22c), incidental scopes over numeral and noun.

• (22) (a) And while pollution incidents for 1991–92 reached an all-time high of 29,524 (National River Authority figures), there were a meagre 536 prosecutions. (BYU-BNC, news) (= (12b))

•   (b) It’s been a fabulous two years for me at Leeds and the lack of goals has been my only disappointment (BYU-BNC, news) (= (1a)/(11a))

•   (c) Prayer is far more than a shopping list, or an incidental five minutes at the end of a busy day. (BYU-BNC, religion)

Neither is there any restriction with regard to the type of modifier, although there are some strong tendencies. Thus, instances with interpersonal (intensifying, downtoning, and amplifying) modifiers were almost all indefinite (36 out of 40); possessives and the singular demonstrative this were, however, also attested:

• (23) (a) Clearly Parliament would last its full five years and the Government could not bring it to a premature end. (BYU-BNC, non-acad)

•   (b) The human instinct to perpetuate one’s own name at every opportunity, whenever more urgent occupation is wanting, had made use even of this mere three square inches of dusty glass. (BYU-BNC, fiction)

Mod-Num NPs with plural demonstratives, on the other hand, are subject to restrictions. First, the plural demonstrative never combines with intensifying, amplifying, or downtoning modifiers. This follows from a second restriction, namely that the modifiers in such NPs were only found to modify the noun, as in (24):^[7]

1. These seemingly harmless four words are repeated several times to form the lyric ‘As clouds roll by for you and I.’ (BYU-BNC, news) (= (1e)/(11b))

Finally, comparative modifiers are typically definite, but, interestingly enough, indefinite determiners can also be found, as in (25) (see also (19c) above):

1. And I couldn’t have chosen a better three weeks to absent myself. (BYU-BNC, misc)

The superlative form of the modifier, on the other hand, only occurs with definite determiners.

5.8 Reversibility

In principle, it may be assumed that reversing the order of modifier and numeral always leads to some change in meaning (assuming that the modifier-numeral order is triggered by some interpersonal or representational feature; see Section 6.1). In some cases, however, the difference in meaning is minimal, as in example (26a) (cf. Payne and Huddleston 2002, 453). The same is true for many instances with an empty head; in that case, however, reversing the modifier-numeral order requires the addition of the pronoun ones (example (26b)).

• (26) (a) Germany and the UK remain the largest two markets/the two largest markets growing by 16% and 32% respectively. (adapted from BYU-BNC, non-acad)

•   (b) The children were allowed no breakfast, the younger two Ø/the two younger *(ones) were not permitted to go to the bathroom […]. (adapted from BYU-BNC, non-acad)

In other cases, the result is syntactically unacceptable (due to the presence of the indefinite determiner), even if the modifier is semantically compatible with the noun. Reversing the order of modifier and numeral in these cases becomes acceptable when we omit the indefinite article (again with a slight semantic difference):

• (27) (a) Mansell had started from the outside of the second row after a troubled two days/two troubled days with the new car. (adapted from BYU/BNC, pop lore)

•   (b) while Douglas, weakened by a stomach upset, survived a hard three games/three hard games with Prean at the round-robin stage. (BYU-BNC, news)

Finally, there are cases where reversing the order of modifier and numeral leads either to a semantically anomalous combination of modifier and noun (example (28a)) or to a clear difference in meaning (examples (28b) and (28c)):

• (28) (a) And while pollution incidents for 1991–92 reached an all-time high of 29,524 (National River Authority figures), there were a meagre 536 prosecutions/^#536 meagre prosecutions. (BYU-BNC, news) (= (12b)/(22a))

•   (b) The number of full committees were being reduced from the two or three dozen common in the early 1960s to a more manageable fifteen or sixteen/fifteen or sixteen more manageable ones. (BYU-BNC, acad) (= (19b))

•   (c) Alcohol also has a dehydrating effect and results in excessive thirst, so don’t have more than your usual two drinks/your two usual drinks tonight. (BYU-BNC, misc)

What the cases in (26) and (27) have in common is that the modifier modifies the noun; reversibility is not possible where the modifier scopes over the numeral (as in (28a) and (28b)), or over the combination of numeral and noun (as in (28c)).

5.9 Type of noun

As shown in Table 8, Mod-Num NPs basically accept any kind of noun. Many of these nouns do indeed indicate some kind of measure (especially time, but also space, money, score, speed, etc.), while nouns denoting non-animate entities are also strongly represented.

As shown in (29), non-measure nouns can be found with each of the three scopes: in (29a), the adjective scopes over the numeral; in (29b), over the noun; and in (29c), over the numeral and the noun:

• (29) (a) A worrying report, published by three teachers’ unions just a few minutes before national curriculum boss David Pascall issued his ‘back to basics’ clarion call, revealed a staggering 80,000 teachers – one in five – want to quit their jobs. (BYU-BNC, news)

•   (b) In Atlanta the score of young blacks who have disappeared join the unlucky 13 women from Yorkshire in swelling the total. (BYU-BNC, religion) (= (14b))

•   (c) The quartet, which entered the competition with a leading seven nominations, accepted via videotape from Minneapolis. (BYU-BNC, news)

Another tendency that can be observed is that temporal nouns seem to favour indefinite Mod-Num NPs more than definite ones (62.6 vs 37.4%), while the reverse is true for human nouns (32.7 vs 67.3%).

Other tendencies do not immediately become clear when we look at the sample as a whole – as we will see in Section 6; however, preferences become clear when we distinguish different subtypes of Mod-Num NPs.

5.10 Verb-noun agreement

The sample contains 22 instances of Mod-Num NPs functioning as subjects combined with finite verbs marked for number. In 11 of these cases, the determiner was definite (plural or unspecified for number) with the verb appearing in the plural form. Some examples can be found in (30):

• (30) (a) These seemingly harmless four words are repeated several times to form the lyric ‘As clouds roll by for you and I.’ (BYU-BNC, news) (= (1e)/(11b)/(24))

•   (b) Supposing I didn’t have what a child objectively should be entitled to…. In coping with the unsaid and unsayable, oral history is impelled towards aposiopesis. The analyst’s response is apt to consist of an ‘…’ But if the work is oral history, it is literature too – a disclosure of predicament and bereavement. The enigmatic three dots to which it is impelled are those of a romantic orphan, as well as those of his reticent doctor. (BYU-BNC, acad)

In six instances, the verb was singular and compatible with the determiner (a(n) or the):

• (31) (a) Each teacher should be able to train 40 pupils in a year. If the targeted 10 000 is achieved, France will have 400 000 more youngsters a year with computer skills. (BYU-BNC, non-acad)

•   (b) The last guest left, or was taken away, after five o’clock in the morning. A pleasant two hours was slept. (BYU-BNC, pop lore)

•   (c) And at the same time a paltry 5 million a year is available for all archaeological survey, conservation and management. (BYU-BNC, non-acad)

Finally, there were five cases with plural subject-verb agreement, but with a singular, indefinite determiner; two of these are given in (32):

• (32) (a) A worrying report, published by three teachers’ unions just a few minutes before national curriculum boss David Pascall issued his ‘back to basics’ clarion call, revealed a staggering 80,000 teachers – one in five – want to quit their jobs. (BYU-BNC, news) (= (29a))

•   (b) The larger restaurant is at Blakelands, catering for 450 staff, while there are a regular 150 catered for at Wymbush training centre with perhaps as many again depending on events and courses. (BYU-BNC, misc)

What we see is that when the determiner is singular indefinite, or definite but unspecified for number (definite article, possessive pronoun), the verb can take either the singular or the plural form. Where the determiner is plural (as in (30a)), only a plural verb seems to be possible.

There does not seem to be a direct relation between agreement and scope of the modifier: in (30), the modifier either scopes over the noun (example (30a)) or over the combination of numeral and noun (example (30b)); in (31), we find all three scopes, such as numeral in (31c), noun in (31b), and numeral and noun in (31a); in (32a), the modifier modifies the numeral, and in (32b), the combination of numeral and noun. Finally, all cases of subject-verb agreement in the corpus involved descriptive modifiers.

What has become clear from this section is that Mod-Num NPs are characterized by substantial variation in terms of each of the factors investigated, as well as in the ways in which these were found to combine. In the next section, it will be argued that it is possible to find order in this variation, but only if different subtypes of Mod-Num NPs are distinguished.

6.1 Classification

So how can we account for the substantial variation observed in the use of Mod-Num NPs – is it possible to detect any kind of systematicity in the data? In this section, it will be argued that the variation, the constraints, and the tendencies described in Section 5 can only be satisfactorily captured if we distinguish different subtypes of Mod-Num NPs. However, before we turn to these subtypes, let us first consider in some more detail of what it is that all these NPs have in common – what is it that triggers the modifier-numeral order?

On the view taken here (as opposed to, for instance, Halliday and Matthiessen (2014)), this has little to do with the function of the prenumeral adjective (or participle) – these will simply be taken to fulfil their normal modifying function. The numeral, too, will be taken to serve its usual, quantifying function. What is different, however, is that, as already mentioned in previous studies, the numeral and the noun form some kind of pre-established conceptual unit (at least for the speaker). The pre-existing nature of these units may have different sources. In some cases, we are dealing with a highly conventionalized unit, which can be assumed to be part of the hearer’s linguistic inventory. Instances of entirely conventionalized units (e.g. the famous seven wonders of the world, The Fabulous Four, etc.) were not included in the sample used for this study. Very often, however, the conceptual unit in question is textually evoked, in which case the unit has been introduced in the previous discourse, thus constituting “discourse-old” information. An example is the definite Mod-Num NP in example (33a), where the speaker does not just refer to four previously mentioned words, but to the clause they form. The conceptual unit may also be introduced by means of the Mod-Num NPs itself; in that case, the concept may either be inferable from the previous discourse (presenting “discourse-new” but “hearer-old” information; often resulting in definiteness; example (33b)), or it may be entirely new (presenting “hearer-new” information, resulting in an indefinite NP (example (33c)) (Prince 1981, 1992).

• (33) (a) DIANA Ross turned up on Des O’Connor Tonight with the song that has already been a hit in America, As Clouds Roll By. These seemingly harmless four words are repeated several times to form the lyric ‘As clouds roll by for you and I.’ (BYU-BNC, news) (= (1e)/(11b)/(24)/(30a))

•   (b) Each teacher should be able to train 40 pupils in a year. If the targeted 10 000 is achieved, France will have 400 000 more youngsters a year with computer skills. (BYU-BNC, non-acad) (= (31a))

•   (c) The quartet, which entered the competition with a leading seven nominations, accepted via videotape from Minneapolis. (BYU-BNC, news) (= (29c))

Note that measure nouns are often used to denote unified wholes rather than individual units: temporal nouns are often used to denote a period of time, currency units are typically used to refer to sums of money, degrees to indicate temperature, etc. Given the fact that the modifier-numeral order is used to indicate the existence (for the speaker) of a conceptual unit, it is not surprising that measure nouns are frequently found in Mod-Num NPs.

Now, if we assume that the numeral and noun form one conceptual unit, it will be clear that this unit forms part of a larger unit, corresponding to the Mod-Num NP as a whole; we are, in other words, dealing with a (plural) unit within a larger (singular or plural) unit. As mentioned in Section 2, some linguists have tried to capture this layered structure by assuming that the NP as a whole functions as a pseudopartitive containing a non-expressed measure or group noun heading an inner (embedded) unit. This will not be the approach taken here; first, because the theory used here, FDG, does not allow for the representation of (non-anaphoric) non-expressed information; and second, because a single analysis cannot account for the variation described in Section 5, and as such fails to account for the semantic and syntactic behaviour of all Mod-Num NPs.

In what follows, a number of subtypes of Mod-Num NPs will be distinguished on the basis of three functional parameters (listed in order of importance):

1. The first parameter concerns the semantic category of the overall expression, which can be either a quantity or some other semantic category. The main formal difference between these two categories is that quantities are always singular (take a singular determiner), may be indefinite, and may trigger singular verb agreement, while the “other” category (phrases denoting individuals, times, places, etc.) are always plural and definite, and always trigger plural verb agreement.

2. The second parameter is the scope of the modifier, as discussed and illustrated in Section 5.1. It will be shown that whereas quantities allow the modifiers to have any of the three scopes (leading to three subclasses), modifiers in the “other” group can only scope over the noun. One formal corollary of this distinction is the possibility of reversing the modifier-numeral order (as discussed in Section 5.8): this is always possible in Mod-Num NPs belonging to the “other” group; with quantities, this is restricted to the subclass of Mod-Num NPs with prenumeral modifiers modifying the noun.

3. The third parameter concerns the type of modifier. The main distinction here is that between interpersonal (intensifying/downtoning/amplifying) modifiers and representational modifiers: the former are non-restrictive, non-gradable, non-modifiable and non-intersective, and cannot themselves be modified, while the latter can be restrictive or non-restrictive, as well as intersective (typically) or subsective, can be always modified and are often gradable. Whereas representational modifiers can be found in any of the (sub)categories distinguished so far, the interpersonal ones can only be found in quantities with prenumeral modifiers scoping over the numeral only.

Thus, whereas the use of a Mod-Num NP suggests the presence of a conceptual unit (the existence of a set of a certain size), Mod-Num NPs may vary on each of the three parameters. This is particularly relevant in the case of the second parameter, which clearly shows that the presence of a (pre-established) conceptual unit and the scope of the modifier are two different things. Thus, it is the modifier-numeral word order that represents the presence of a conceptual unit; the modifier in question, however, can have each of the three scopes described. An expression like a fabulous two years in (1a), for instance, evokes the existence of a conceptual unit of two (continuous) years; nevertheless, as argued in Section 5.1, the modifier fabulous is taken to scope over the noun only.

The application of these three parameters leads to the classification in Table 9. In what follows, each of the subtypes distinguished will be discussed in turn.

6.2 FDG analysis

In this section, each of the subtypes of Mod-Num NPs will be provided with an FDG analysis capturing their specific semantic and pragmatic properties.^[11] It will also be shown that the distinctive formal properties of each type follow from the analyses proposed.

Since the main feature of the Mod-Num NP is the fact that the numeral and the noun form one conceptually pre-established unit, and since this feature has formal consequences (triggering the modifier–numeral order), it needs to be captured at one of the two levels of formulation. Given that semantic scope relations are dealt with at the Representational Level, and that this is also the level at which we find the numeral operator, this is assumed to be the relevant level. I therefore suggest the following general frame for Mod-Num NPs:

1. (v₁: (f₁: (NUM v₂: (f^l₁: LEX_N (f^l₁)) (v₂)) (f₁)) (v₁))

where v is a variable representing any type of semantic category.

As pointed out in the previous section, the presence of a conceptual unit of numeral and noun is best captured by assuming the presence of two units: an outer unit, representing the entity denoted by the NP as a whole, and an inner unit representing the pre-established unit of numeral and noun. Since both units can have a range of denotations (Quantity, Individual, Time, Location, etc.), these are represented here as v₁ and v₂. Between these two layers, we find an extra layer (f₁), which serves to indicate that the inner unit is to be regarded as a single Property heading the outer unit. At the Interpersonal Level, the unit as a whole corresponds to a single Referential Subact.

Using (40) as a basis, we can now provide each of the subtypes distinguished above with its own analysis.

6.3 Some final remarks about quantities

The analyses proposed in the previous section are based on a number of assumptions: (i) it is the presence of an inner set, separated from the outer set by an intervening f-layer, which triggers the modifier–numeral word order; (ii) the outer set is either a singular Quantity, triggering a singular determiner, or a plural set (of any denotation), triggering a plural determiner; (iii) in the case of a Quantity, the verb may exhibit number agreement either with the Quantity (singular) of with the inner set (plural); in the case of a plural outer set, the verb will always appear in the plural form.

Singular quantities may also, however, contain an inner set without the intervening f-layer. In that case, the modifier appears in the postnumeral position, but the singularity operator of the Quantity may still trigger singular verb agreement; as we have seen, the verb can also agree with the plural inner unit:

• (52) (a) Three quiet weeks (in the country) is/are what you need.

•   (b) (sing q_i: (3 t_i: (f^l_i: week (f^l_i)) (t_i): (f^l_j: quiet (f^l_j)) (t_i)) (q_i))

Note also that in this case, the use of a singular determiner is not possible: this requires the presence of the intervening f-layer to block plural agreement between the determiner and the noun, thus ruling out expressions like *a/that three quiet weeks in the country (cf. Keenan 2013, 88; note that here the postnumeral adjective blocks a conceptual-unit reading).

This means that in those cases where we do find a singular determiner in combination with a plural head noun, we must have the additional f-layer, even if there is no prenumeral adjective:

• (53) (a) That ten days we spent in Florida was fantastic. (Payne and Huddleston 2002, 354)

•   (b) (sing q_i: (f_i: (10 t_i: (f^l_i: day (f^l_i)) (t_i): (ep_i: –we spent in Florida– (ep_i)) (t_i)) (f_i)) (q_i))

Note that without a prenumeral adjective, the postmodifier in (53) cannot be omitted (*^? That ten days was fantastic). In other words, the use of a singular determiner requires some explicit indication that we are dealing with a pre-established combination of numeral and noun, either in the form of prenumeral adjective or in the form of a postmodifier (again ruling out *a ten days; Keenan (2013, 88)).^[16]