A Minimalist Account of Numerals

Tacettin Turgay

doi:10.18492/dad.1016340

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Sayısal İfadelerin Minimalist İncelemesi

Öz

Sayısal ifadeler, kütle ve hacim belirtme, derecelendirme, sıralama, sayma ve aritmetik işlem yapma gibi çeşitli süreçlerin ifade edilmesinde etkin bir rol oynamaktadır. Bu durum sayısalların dilbilimsel doğasına, özelikle de anlambilimsel olarak ne ifade ettiklerine ve biçimbilim-sözdizim modülünde nasıl türetildiklerine ilişkin bir dizi soruyu gündeme getirmektedir. Ancak, sayısalların anlamı üzerine çok sayıda kuram öne sürülmüş olsa da sözdizim tarafındaki çalışmalar nitelik ve nicelik bakımından oldukça yetersizdir. Bunun yanında, sözdizim alanında yapılan çalışmaların çoğu Yönetim ve Bağlama döneminden kalma olup bu dönemde varılan sonuçların günümüz çalışmalarına yön veren Minimalizm çerçevesinde yeniden ele alınması gerekmektedir. Sayısalların sözdizimsel yapısını Minimalist çerçevede yeniden ele almayı amaçlayan bu çalışmada, bunların sayı bildiren n tipinde varlıklar olup iki farklı özden türetildiği öne sürülmektedir: n tipinde doymuş RAKAMLAR ile tipinde doymamış TABANLAR. Bunlardan ilki basit, ikincisi ise karmaşık sayısalların türetiminde rol almaktadır. Bu yaklaşım ile, hem sayısalların dağılım ve yorumunu etkileyen kısıtlamaların hem de olası bazı türetimlerin dünya dillerinde şimdiye dek gözlemlenememe nedenlerinin ilkeler bazında açıklığa kavuşturulabileceği gösterilmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

A Minimalist Account of Numerals

Abstract

Numerals participate in the expression of a wide range of operations, including mass, volume, degree, ordering, counting, and arithmetic calculations. This raises the questions of what they denote semantically and how they are derived morpho-syntactically. Although a number of theories have been advanced regarding their semantics, studies on the syntactic side are rather scarce. Further, the syntactic accounts of numerals date back to GB period, calling for a reinterpretation of their conclusions under Minimalist considerations. This study attempts to develop a syntactic account of numerals under Minimalist desiderata. It is proposed that numerals are number-denoting type n objects, derived from two primitives: saturated DIGITs of type n, and unsaturated BASEs of type , instrumental in the derivation of simplex and complex numerals, respectively. This view is demonstrated to account for a wide range of distributional and interpretive possibilities of numerals as well as provide principled reasons for why some plausible forms are consistently unattested across languages.

Keywords

References

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