Numerals in Turkish

Abstract

Numbers are frequent expressions used in daily communication to count objects, compare amounts, calculate, determine order, make measurements, encode information and transmit data. In traditional and modern grammars of Turkish, numerals are covered under adjectives. Other studies on numerals in Turkish discussed the use of numerals with reference to their etymological and mythological roots instead of their structural properties. In this study, I will try to give a fully detailed explanation of numeral expressions in Turkish following the categorial classification of Booij (2009) and the syntactic analyses of Hurford (2007, 2010). In addition to these, I will propose a new set of phrase structure rule for the fractional numeral expressions to explain their syntactic structure. The new set of phrase structure rules presented in the study can explain all kinds of numeral expressions, ordinal, cardinal, and fractional. The new phrase structure rules can also explain different constructions for fractional numerals which seem very diverse using a unified approach.