“Diacronia” bibliometric database (BDD)
Title:

Partitive MOST in English and Romanian

Authors:
Publication: Sintaxa ca mod de a fi. Omagiu Gabrielei Pană Dindelegan, la aniversare, p. 191
ISBN:978-606-16-0846-1
Editors:Adina Dragomirescu, Alexandru Nicolae, Camelia Stan, Rodica Zafiu
Publisher:Editura Universității din București
Place:București
Year:
Abstract:Whereas most+plural NPs disallow collective predicates in both English and Romanian (due to a general ban on set-restrictor quantifiers with collective predicates, as opposed to entity-restrictor quantifiers), most+of+DPs behave differently in the two languages, allowing collective predicates in English but not in Romanian. We explain this difference by proposing that partitives headed by MOST contain a null N in Romanian (cei mai mulţi [NØ] din+DP) but not in English. We derive this difference from the morphosyntactic properties of the determiners: whereas Engl. most is unmarked for number, its Ro. counterpart cei mai mulţi is plural. We argue that a null sortal N is required by those determiners which select for plurals or are marked as plural via agreement, because the Number feature presupposes an N category, whose content introduces the criterion for identifying atoms, the units of counting.
Key words:quantifier most, partitive, collective predicate
Language: English

Citations to this publication: 1

References in this publication: 0

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