Partitive and Counting Phrases in Polish : A Nanosyntactic Analysis of Syncretism

Authors

ŽOHA Lukáš

Year of publication 2025
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Linguistics Beyond And Within
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
web https://czasopisma.kul.pl/index.php/LingBaW/article/view/18207
Doi https://doi.org/10.31743/lingbaw.18207
Keywords syntax; syncretism; counting phrases; pseudo-partitive phrases; nanosyntax; *ABA
Description This paper investigates syncretism in Polish pseudo-partitive and counting phrases, where different forms of the same noun appear in context as ‘a piece of apple’, ‘two apples’, and ‘five apples’. These contexts exhibit three distinct syncretism patterns, depending on whether suffixes are repeated or differ across forms. The analysis focuses on how suffixes signal distinctions in number and countability, drawing on the nanosyntactic framework. By applying the Lexicalization Algorithm, the paper shows how noun structures grow incrementally and how suffixes compete for lexicalization. Special attention is paid to the ABA pattern in feminine nouns, where the same suffix appears in the genitive singular and genitive plural, but not in the nominative plural – a configuration rarely attested cross-linguistically.
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