Mirror in nominal morphology

Many languages have articles which express definiteness, specificity, or indefiniteness (cf. Dryer 1989b). Another piece of nominal functional structure which is found in many languages is some overt marker of plurality (sometimes also duality or paucality; see Delfitto and Schroten 1991; Borer 2005a). If we compare the relative order of these markers across languages, the order Art > Pl > N emerges as the most plausible underlying hierarchy; some examples of Art–Pl–N order are provided in (1) (the glosses DEF, ART, and INDEF are retained from the original sources).

In many cases, prenominal articles and plural markers are not strictly adjacent to the noun (cf. Dryer 1989a), permitting adjectives and numerals, for instance, to intervene.

Another relatively common order is that in which the article precedes, but the plural marker follows, the noun (English is such a language). Some examples are given in (2).

In these cases, the article is often separable from the noun by adjectives and other material, but the plural marker more rarely so; this suggests that N–Pl order may be the result of some kind of cluster formation (for discussion of cluster formation in the derivation of such orders see Svenonius 2007).

Finally, there are many examples of “mirror” order (the reverse of Art– Pl–N), in which N precedes Pl and both precede Art. These very often show cluster effects, with the three elements not allowing interruption by adjectives or other phrasal material.

There are also cases in which articles are reported to appear inside plural markers. Under closer investigation, these seem to fall into two types: those in which the morpheme appearing closer to the noun than the plural is not actually an article, and those in which there is evidence for movement. I briefly describe one example of each type.

Basque is a language that is sometimes described as having an article inside the plural marker, as in gizon-a-k “man-det-pl.” However, the morphemein question does not signal the semantic effects associated with articles; it is used, for example, on nouns in existential contexts (examples from Hualde and Ortiz de Urbina 2003: 120).

Thus the Basque suffix -a does not satisfy the usual criteria for an article.  I will continue to assume that morphemes that consistently mark specificity or definiteness (including those which mark noun phrases as non-specific or indefinite) are articles, hierarchically located above plural markers. Gungbe is a language which does exhibit the order N–Art–Pl (two different articles are illustrated here, from Aboh 2004: 77).

Aboh argues that there is phrasal movement across Art. The projection of N which moves carries with it all modifiers and dependents of N (Aboh 2004: 78,90).

Aboh develops a detailed roll-up analysis of the word order here, with the N moving first to the left of the adjective, the N–A sequence moving to the left of the Numeral, the N–A–Num sequence moving to the left of the Demonstrative, and the N–A–Num–Dem sequence crossing the plural marker and the article.

Thus, the order of morphemes cross-linguistically is compatible with the basic hierarchy Article > Plural > Noun, with a cluster formation rule (essentially like head movement) forming N–Pl and N–Pl–Art clusters in some languages, and more rarely, phrasal movement leading to other orders.