Associative plurals in Slavic languages and beyond

Abstract

This paper examines the associative plural construction in languages that use the multiplicative plural marker to derive the associative plural (henceforth plural pattern languages) and establishes a novel typological generalization about such languages: all plural pattern languages are either articleless or have affixal articles. To account for this previously unnoticed property of plural pattern languages, a new analysis is presented in which the plural pattern involves incorporation of Num⁰ to the head of a functional projection AssociativeP. It is then argued that associative plurals in South Slavic—which involve plural possessives—also show the plural pattern (i.e., also involve incorporation of the Num head), showing that the current approach can unify cross-linguistically dissimilar associative plurals under one analysis.