The interaction between numerals and nouns

Abstract

This paper is a descriptive survey of the principal phenomena surrounding cardinal numerals in attribution to nouns, with some concentration on European languages, but within a world-wide perspective. The paper is focussed on describing the syntagmatic distribution and the internal structure of numerals. By contrast, the important topic of the paradigmatic context of numerals, that is how their structure and behaviour relates to those of quantifiers, determiners, adjectives, and nouns, does not receive systematic discussion here, although many relevant comments are made in passing. A further necessary limitation in scope is the exclusion of forms which are only marginally cardinal numerals, if at all, such as English both, dozen, fourscore, pair, triple and their counterparts in other languages.