Seminumerals, determiners and nouns in English

Abstract

A singular countable noun in English normally requires a determiner and they should agree in number. However, there is a type of noun phrase, such as those thousand teachers, which does not conform to this generalisation. As a subtype of singular countable noun, thousand requires a determiner, but the determiner has number agreement with the head noun teachers. The standard HPSG treatment, in which the determiner requirement and the determiner-noun agreement are both represented in the SPR specifications of the head noun, cannot capture this special agreement pattern. Our analysis, in which the determiner requirement and the determiner-noun agreement are dissociated from each other, can provide a straightforward account of the data.