Aspects of morphosyntactic constraints on quantification in English and Polish

Abstract

The topic of dissertation “Aspects of morphosyntactic constraints on quantification in English and Polish” is numerals and lexemes expressing quantity such as many, much, a few/little, several/a few functioning as modifiers in nominal phrases in English and Polish. The subject matter analyzed in the present work is syntax of nominal phrases containing quantifiers within a generative grammar, more specifically in the recent permutations of generative model as discussed by Chomsky (1995, 2001), and according to a novel approach to grammar, i.e. nanosyntax, as introduced by Starke (2009); Caha (2009, 2010 ) or Taraldsen (2009). The major aspect of this work is the structure of nominal phrases containing quantifiers as well as the mechanism of case distribution within a phrase based on the theory of movement together with the assumption that the smallest building block is not a morpheme, as it has been the case in various generative approaches, but a feature. What follows, elements in phrases occurring in positions to which structural cases, i.e. Nominative and Accusative, or oblique cases, i.e. and Genitive or Dative etc. are assigned, move to the position within a maximal projection of a given Case. The proposed model seems to provide tools to explain the homogenous and heterogeneous syntax of numerals, the intricate patterns of case marking of modifiers in a pre-numeral and pre-nominal position as well as signals new avenues to explore in the syntax of agreement with quantified subjects.