numerals and quantifiers

[Claire Bowern]

Thanks Thomas, this is helpful, though crucially different from the Australian cases I'm looking at, where 'three four' would mean 'seven', not 'three or four'. Another analogical construction would be if German speakers could use "einig- wenig-" to denote a quality that is more than "einig" but less than "viel" - e.g. "Ich habe einige-wenige Bücher im Taschen" - are there languages that do that?
Claire



On Oct 17, 2011, at 11:28 AM, Thomas Goldammer wrote:

> Hi Claire,
> 
> well, in German you have that with numerals, you can say "drei vier"
> meaning "three or four". This number juxtaposition is a distinct
> construction, as you cannot do that with two non-subsequent numbers,
> so *"drei fünf" (three five) with the intended meaning "three or five"
> or "three to five" does absolutely not work. Additionally, you can
> combine this with higher numbers, so "drei vier-hundert" (literally:
> three four hundred) really means "around 300 to 400", but *"drei
> fünf-hundert" would not work again. Moreover, you can do this with
> subsequent tens too, "dreißig vierzig" meaning "around 30 to 40" works
> fine, but again *"dreißig fünfzig" does not work. This system works
> with high numbers as well. "Sie ist 84 85 Jahre alt." (lit.: she is 84
> 85 years old), but not *Sie ist 84 86 Jahre alt."
> 
> I don't know if anything about this particular construction in German
> has been published (I suppose so, but I'm not aware of a possible
> citation). I hope this is what you were looking for. :)
> 
> Best regards,
> Thomas.
> 
> 2011/10/17 Claire Bowern <clairebowern at gmail.com>:
>> Hi list members,
>> I'm doing some work with a student at the moment on the structure of 'numeral' systems in Australian languages. As you probably know, these systems are restricted, and some Australian languages have been claimed to lack numerals entirely, having instead a system of vague quantifiers or number-marked indefinite determiners.
>> This seems to me to raise some interesting questions about the syntax of quantifiers in such languages (how they co-occur with other words which we would want to call determiners, for example). One of the features of some of these systems is that the terms can be combined.
>> Could readers of this list point me to examples of languages elsewhere in the world where unambiguous determiners or quantifiers can be productively combined? That is, I'm looking for examples of languages where words like "few-some" would mean "some quantity more than few and more than some but less than many". I know there are languages where quantifiers can be reduplicated - examples of them would also be welcome.
>> Thanks! (I'll post a summary)
>> Claire
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> ----
>> Claire Bowern
>> Associate Professor
>> Yale University
>> 370 Temple St
>> New Haven, CT
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
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> Thomas Goldammer
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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