Accounting for counting (crosslinguistically)

Abstract

This paper proposes a universal account of counting constructions. The observable variation in such constructions can be categorized into four possible systems resulting from parametric variation of two linguistic properties - NP[+/- pred] (whether the NP starts out as a predicate or a kind term) and Card/CL (whether cardinal and classifier heads are fused). The four systems show different patterns vis-à-vis overt occurrence of number-marking plurals (of the English type) and numeral classifiers - they are either obligatorily complementary, or obligatorily absent, or they obligatorily co-occur. The first two systems have been extensively studied, and the third has been argued to be impossible. This paper introduces novel data from Khasi, which exhibits such a system. Independent support for the proposed typology comes from languages where the cardinal and classifier form a complex morphological unit. In one such language, Ch’ol, numeral classifiers are not grammatically compatible with borrowed Spanish cardinals, supporting that they too are cardinal/classifier units but morphologically non-transparent.