Complex simplex numerals

Abstract

Abstract It is commonly assumed that basic cardinal numerals such as English three are simplex expressions whose primary function is to quantify over entities denoted by the modified NP (e.g., Kennedy 2015; Rothstein 2017; Ionin & Matushansky 2018). In this paper, we explore cross-linguistic marking patterns suggesting that cardinals in fact lexicalize complex syntactic and semantic structures derived from the primitive notion of the number scale. The evidence we will investigate comes from various morphological shapes of cardinal numerals when used to count objects and when used for abstract arithmetical counting.