Case patterns with numerals and quantity nouns
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In Czech, counted nouns (with numerals five and up) show up in the genitive case when the numeral is in the nominative or accusative, but they agree with the numeral in case the numeral is dative, locative or instrumental. In other words, the genitive on the counted noun interacts differently with NOM, ACC (set 1) than it does with LOC, DAT, INS (set2). In my recent work, I have tried to relate such patterns to some independent facts about the morphology of case. Specifically, in Czech, it is overwhelmingly the case that case syncretism (the formal identity of two distinct cases) targets contiguous regions in the sequence NOM-ACC-GEN-LOC-DAT-INS. In this sequence, the two sets of cases (distinguished by their variable relation to the GEN) are found on two different sides of it: NOM, ACC (set 1) are to its left, while the other cases (set 2) are found to its right. The talk sets out to explain this correlation, and see if that explanation carries over to other languages (like Classical Armenian or Estonian). Time permitting, I will propose a specific treatment of the Estonian partitive case not as a case proper, but rather as a portmanteau marker for the combination of two different case values stacked one on top of the other. |
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