Elamur Research⌕
☰
home / papers / 2020 / The article <i>a(n)</i> in English quantifying expressions: A default marker of cardinality

The article <i>a(n)</i> in English quantifying expressions: A default marker of cardinality

Paper · 2020 · Heidi Klockmann

Summary

The paper asks what the article a(n) is doing in English quantity expressions such as a lot of, a few, a hundred or a good twenty. The standard view would place it in the D position as an indefinite singular determiner. Klockmann sorts English quantifiers into three classes: pseudopartitives, article-requiring quantifiers, and article-free quantifiers, which still need a(n) once an adjective modifies them. She tests each class with constructed judgments and exploratory searches in COCA. The article in these expressions does not trigger singular verb agreement and freely combines with plural and mass nouns. From this she concludes that it is neither D nor singular/count. Her proposal is that a(n) is a featureless default spell-out of a quantifier projection (QP), inserted only when nothing else lexicalizes that projection. This one assumption accounts for its interplay with adjectives, plural -s, definite determiners and degrees of grammaticalization. She then sketches how the ordinary indefinite article might reduce to the same marker. The result matters because it separates counting from definiteness in the structure of the noun phrase.

Key points

  • Three quantifier classes:
    • Pseudopartitives with article and of: a bunch/lot/ton of.
    • Article-requiring quantifiers: a few, a couple, a dozen, a hundred.
    • Article-free quantifiers: three, many, several. These take a when modified, as in a good many or a surprising 30.
  • Data: COCA (about 1 billion words as of March 2020) was used exploratorily. Roughly the first 100 random hits per query were inspected, so frequencies are mostly not reported.
  • Agreement evidence: the article does not control singular agreement and appears with plural and mass N2. This argues against a singular D or Num analysis.
  • Interactions: a(n) disappears when QP is spelled out by something else, such as plural -s (tons of) or another determiner (the hundred). Some figurative quantifier nouns (e.g. a wealth of vs. a lot) are less functional and never realize QP themselves, which she explains through grammaticalization.
  • Proposed hierarchy: DP > QP > NumberP > NP, building on Borer's division vs. counting distinction. Under the unified extension, singular count nouns contain QP, while bare plurals and bare mass nouns lack it.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Agreement behaviour is used as a diagnostic: if the article really carried singular number, the verb would agree with it, and it does not. This kind of behavioural test is reusable for deciding what a function word actually contributes.
  • I2. The article is analysed as a last-resort filler for a slot that has no other overt realization, rather than as a meaningful word in its own right.
  • I3. Quantifiers are classified by surface form (with or without an article, with or without of, and whether a modifier forces an article). This gives a compact, testable taxonomy.
  • I4. Counting is kept apart from dividing: plurals and mass nouns are divided or undivided but uncounted until an overt quantifier appears.
  • I5. Figurative pseudopartitive heads (a flood of, a sea of, a wealth of) are productive and quantify by imagery, while their literal noun uses differ (wealth takes no a and no of when literal).

For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

  • I1 (tree): When converting or checking UD trees for a lot of N and a few N, the parser could treat N2 as the head and the article as a non-number-bearing marker, so that agreement checks follow N2 rather than a.
  • I2 (frames): Frame building could ignore the a in quantity phrases when deciding definiteness or reference, and read the quantity from the quantifier instead, so that a hundred books is not tagged as a singular indefinite entity.
  • I3 (tokens): The tagger and lemmatizer could carry a feature for each quantifier class, so that a good many, tons of and a dozen are grouped as multiword quantity units with known behaviour.
  • I4 (world): The world model could store cardinality only when a QP-like element is present, and record bare plurals or mass nouns as uncounted quantities instead of inventing a number. This helps maths word problems avoid false precision.
  • I5 (world): A compiled list of quantifier-noun readings could map these heads to a vague "many" degree scale (ton > lot > bunch) and block the literal measure reading, such as ton meaning 2000 pounds, unless the context calls for it.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Institutions

Also on the byline: University of Agder.

 Fields, topics and concepts

📚 Shelves 5The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Arts and Humanities · 16,039 worksLanguage and Linguistics · 15,891 worksPsychology · 1,552 worksExperimental and Cognitive Psychology · 870 worksDevelopmental and Educational Psychology · 499 works

🧭 Topics 1Research subjects and languages the work is about.English · 2,263 works

Cite

Cite as Heidi Klockmann. 2020. The article <i>a(n)</i> in English quantifying expressions: A default marker of cardinality. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.5334/gjgl.1151

@article{klockmann2020article,
  title = {{The article <i>a(n)</i> in English quantifying expressions: A default marker of cardinality}},
  author = {Heidi Klockmann},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.5334/gjgl.1151},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1151}
}

References

44 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. Abney, Steven Paul. 1987. The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation. find
  2. Ackles, Nancy. 1996. The indefinite article, historical syntax and noun phrase structure. Working Papers in Linguistics 14. 1–36. find
  3. Alexiadou, Artemis, Liliane Haegeman & Melita Stavrou. 2008. Noun Phrase in the Generative perspective (Studies in Generative Grammar 71). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110207491 ↗
  4. Borer, Hagit. 2005. Structuring sense Volume I: In name only. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263905.001.0001 ↗
  5. Brame, Michael. 1982. The head-selector theory of lexical specifications and the nonexistence of coarse categories. Linguistic Analysis 10(4). 321–325. find
  6. Bylinina, Lisa, Jakub Dotlačil & Heidi Klockmann. 2016, September. Adjectival modification of numerals. Paper presented at the Logic in Language and Conversation workshop. Utrecht. find
  7. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1998. Reference to kinds across languages. Natural Language Semantics 6. 339–405. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008324218506 ↗
  8. Corver, Norbert & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.). 2001. Semi-lexical categories: The function of content words and the content of function words (Studies in Generative Grammar 59). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110874006 Davies, Mark. 2008-. The Corpus of Contemporary American English: One billion words, 1990–2019. Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/. ↗
  9. De Clercq, Karen. 2017. The internal syntax of Q-words. Linguistics in the Netherlands 34(1). 31–46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.34.03dec de Vries, Hanna. 2015. Shifting sets, hidden atoms: The semantics of distributivity, plurality and animacy. Utrecht: Utrecht University dissertation. de Vries, Hanna & George Tsoulas. 2018. Portions and countability: A crosslinguistic investigation. Ms. University of York. ↗
  10. Ellsworth, Michael, Russell Lee-Goldman & Russell Rhodes. 2008. Two paradoxes of English determination: The construction of complex numeral expressions. In Michael Grosvald & Dionne Soares (eds.), Proceedings of the 38 th Western Conference on Linguistics, 24–33. Davis, CA: University of California, Davis. find
  11. Fassi Fehri, Abdelkader. 2018. Constructing feminine to mean: Gender, number, numeral, and quantifier extensions in Arabic. London: Lexington Books. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0022226719000215 Gebhardt, Lewis. 2009. Numeral classifiers and the structure of DP. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University dissertation. ↗
  12. Giusti, Giuliana. 1997. The categorial status of determiners. In Liliane Haegeman (ed.), The new comparative syntax, 95–123. London: Longman. find
  13. Grestenberger, Laura. 2015. Number marking in German measure phrases and the structure of pseudo-partitives. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 18. 93–138. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10828-015-9074-1 ↗
  14. Hankamer, Jorge & Line Mikkelsen. 2008. Definiteness marking and the structure of Danish pseudopartitives. Journal of Linguistics 44(2). 317–346. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0022226708005148 Henderson, Robert. 2017. Swarms: Spatiotemporal grouping across domains. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 35(1). 161–203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9334-z ↗
  15. Honda, Masaru. 1984. On the syntax and semantics of numerals in English. Journal of Osaka Jogakuin 2-year College 14. 97–115. find
  16. Ionin, Tania & Ora Matushansky. 2004. A singular plural. In Vineeta Chand, Ann Kelleher, Angelo Rodriguez, & Benjamin Schmeiser (eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 399–412. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. find
  17. Ionin, Tania & Ora Matushansky. 2018. Cardinals: The syntax and semantics of cardinal-containing expressions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8703.001.0001 ↗
  18. Jackendoff, Ray. 1977. X’-Syntax: A study of phrase structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. find
  19. Kayne, Richard. 2005. A note on the syntax of quantity in English. In Movement and silence (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax), 176–214. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195179163.003.0008 ↗
  20. Kayne, Richard. 2010. A note on the syntax of numerical bases. In Comparisons and contrasts (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax), 57–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press. find
  21. Keenan, Caitlin. 2013. ‘A pleasant three days in Philadelphia’: Arguments for a pseudopartitive analysis. Proceedings of the 36 th Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium 19(1). 87–96. find
  22. Keizer, Evelien. 2007. The English Noun Phrase: The nature of linguistic categorization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511627699 ↗
  23. Kim, Jong-Bok. 2004. Hybrid agreement in English. Linguistics 42(6). 1105–1128. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.2004.42.6.1105 ↗
  24. Klockmann, Heidi. 2018. Restructuring in the nominal domain: Evidence from English kind-words. In Sherry Hucklebridge & Max Nelson (eds.), NELS 48: Proceedings of the forty-eighth annual meeting of the North East Linguistic Society 2. 119–132. Amherst, MA: Graduate Linguistics Student Association. find
  25. Le Bruyn, Bert. 2010. Indefinite articles and beyond. Utrecht: Utrecht University dissertation. find
  26. Lobeck, Anne. 1995. Ellipsis: Functional heads, licensing, and identification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. find
  27. Longobardi, Giuseppe. 1994. Reference and proper names: A theory of N-movement in syntax and logical form. Linguistic Inquiry 25(4). 609–665. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4178880 ↗
  28. Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605789 ↗
  29. Maekawa, Takafumi. 2013. An HPSG analysis of ‘a beautiful two weeks’. Linguistic Research 30(3). 407–433. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17250/khisli.30.3.201312.001 ↗
  30. Marušič, Franc and Rok Žaucer. 2019. On the nature of prenumeral adjectives. In Branimir Stanković & Aleksandra Janić (eds.), SinFonIJA 6 Proceedings, 39–61. Niš: University of Niš. find
  31. Matushansky, Ora. 2006. Head-movement in linguistic theory. Linguistic Inquiry 37. 69–109. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4179351. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1162/002438906775321184 Pelletier, F. Jeffrey. 1975. Non-singular reference: Some preliminaries. Philosophia 5(4). 451–465. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02379268 ↗
  32. Rett, Jessica. 2014. The polysemy of measurement. Lingua 143. 242–266. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2014.02.001 Rothstein, Susan. 2017. Semantics for counting and measuring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511734830 ↗
  33. Selkirk, Elisabeth. 1977. Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In Peter Culicover, Thomas Wasow & Adrian Akmajian (eds.), Formal syntax, 285–316. New York: Academic Press. find
  34. Solt, Stephanie. 2007, September. Two types of modified cardinals. Paper presented at the International Conference on Adjectives. Lille. find
  35. Solt, Stephanie. 2009. The semantics of adjectives of quantity. New York, NY: The City University of New York dissertation. find
  36. Stavrou, Melita. 2003. Semi-lexical nouns, classifiers, and the interpretation(s) of the pseudopartitive construction. In Yves D’hulst & Martine Coene (eds.), From NP to DP (volume I), The syntax and semantics of noun phrases, 329–353. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/la.55.15sta ↗
  37. Svenonius, Peter. 2012. Spanning. Ms. University of Tromsø. van Riemsdijk, Henk. 1998. Categorial feature magnetism: The endocentricity and distribution of projections. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 2. 1–48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009763305416 Vos, Riet. 1999. The grammar of direct and indirect partitive constructions. Tilburg: Tilburg University dissertation. ↗
  38. Wągiel, Marcin. 2015. The story of Polish ‘para’: From a group noun to a measure word and indefinite. In Markéta Ziková, Pavel Caha & Mojmír Dočekal (eds.), Slavic languages in the perspective of formal grammar: Proceedings of FDSL 10.5, Brno 2014, 325– 344. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. find
  39. Wągiel, Marcin. 2020. Several quantifiers are different than others: Polish indefinite numerals. In Franc Marušič, Petra Mišmaš & Rok Žaucer (eds.), Advances in formal Slavic linguistics 2017, 323–353. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3764869 ↗
  40. Zamparelli, Roberto. 2000. Layers in the Determiner Phrase. New York, NY: Garland. find
  41. How to cite this article: Klockmann, Heidi. 2020. The article a(n) in English quantifying expressions: A default marker of cardinality. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5(1): 85. 1–31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.1151 ↗
  42. Submitted: 28 October 2019 find
  43. Published: 25 August 2020 find
  44. Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press. OPEN ACCESS ↗

Updated

↑ back to top

This page in Markdown → https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/klockmann-2020-article-i-n-i-english/