morphological? - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

(15) a [[deux —] NP [ou [trois —] NP ] NP verres] NP
b le père et la mère de Jean ‘the father and the mother of John’
(16) a [[[deux] CARD [ou [trois] CARD] CARD ] CARD verres] NP
b Pierre lit et relit ses notes. ‘Peter reads and rereads his notes’
There is considerable evidence showing that analysis (16) is the right one. In a nutshell:
numerals behave like ‘light elements’ (Abeillé & Godard 1999); they must be
coordinated with an element of the same category, e.g. les deux ou trois verres vs. *les
deux ou (différents + autres) verres, unlike phrasal coordination (15), e.g. Jean est
directeur de cette école et fier de ses résultats ‘John is director of this school and proud
of his results’. If we were to generate numerals from coordinated NPs on the pattern of
(15) with ellipsis of the embedded Ns, e.g. from *les trente verres et un verre, we would
be at a loss to account for the atomic semantics of numerals such as (13a). Constraints
on interpretation give additional support to the view that complex numerals (13) and
arithmetic expressions (14) are lexical coordinations, the structure of which is [CARD [et
[CARD]]].
Problems raised by expressions (13)-(14) can be dealt with if we suppose that the
rule deriving ordinal adjectives in French suffixes /j_Em/ to the rightmost CARD of a
complex numeral cf. (17):
(17) trente et un > trente et unième, *trentième et un
soixante et onze > soixante et onzième, *soixantième et onze
Approximative CARD ou CARD numerals are analysed as lexicalised coordinate phrases,
on a par with (18) (which are names of French departments). Inasmuch as adjectives can
regularly be derived from the latter (cf. (19)), the same analysis can be extended to
(14b) viz. douze ou treizième (siècle).
(18) Lot et Garonne, Seine et Marne
(19) lot-et-garonnais, seine-et-marnais
Doing so, we account for examples in (20) (actually, (20c) is excluded because semantic
reasons prevent quatre ou quinze to be a well-formed approximative number):
(20) a. deux ou trois, quatre ou quinze
b. deux ou troisième
c. *quatre ou quinzième,
d. *deuxième ou trois, *quatrième ou quinze
The proposed account also predicts the low acceptability of (21), since LFRs normally
do not apply to phrases.
(21) ?*au si ou au septième étage, ?*toutes les trois, cinq et septième rue
Conclusion
• Lexeme-building morphology productively applies to numerals even though not all
processes are productives.
• There is, at it were, a discrepancy between the predictions of a structuralist theory of
morphology and what is plausible from a semiotical point of view.
• The fact that numerals are not typical lexemes has no bearing at the semiotic level.
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