Predicate Agreement with Quantifier Phrases Containing the Words Polovina or Trett and an Approximative Marker

Abstract

This paper focuses on predicate agreement with quantified phrases that include bolee, okolo (“about, more than”) and the nouns polovina (a half), tret’ (a third), and numerals. This study based on data from the National Russian Corpus describe the modern standard of predicate agreement with quantified phrases containing okolo, bolee poloviny/treti. The data show that a predicate is most likely to occur in the singular with “bolee, okolo numeral” and in the plural with “okolo, bolee polovina/tret’”. The author proposes an answer to the question of why the standards of agreement for quantified phrases with similar structures are different. The factors that influence the form of the predicate are also examined.