Being a (root; see Section 3) modifier, the Halkomelem plural marker does not instantiate a grammatical category, which results in certain properties distinguishing it from a head plural. Here we will focus on three properties that result from its status as a modifying plural: it does not take part in obligatory agreement processes; its absence leads to a number-neutral reading, rather than singular; and the language has no pluralia tantum.

As a modifying plural that adjoins to the relevant phrase with which it appears, the Halkomelem plural is not capable of participating in syntactic operations such as Agree (Chomsky 2000; 2001). The main evidence for this comes from the behavior of the plural in the number agreement pattern in the language, which is in contrast to that in English (see (8) and the discussion below). Consider the Halkomelem pattern illustrated in (7). In this example, a plural noun such as s-í:wí:qe ‘men’ is compatible with either a plural determiner ye (7a) or a singular determiner te (7b). A singular noun in the language shows a similar pattern being able to appear with a plural determiner ye (7c) or a singular determiner te (7d). In Halkomelem, thus, the co-occurrence of number morphemes on a determiner and a noun is optional: a plural noun does not require a plural determiner shown by the grammaticality of both (7a) and (7b), and a singular noun does not require a singular determiner as shown by the grammaticality of both (7c) and (7d).

The pattern shown in Halkomelem (7) is different from English as illustrated in (8). In English, co-occurrence of number morphemes on the determiner and the noun is obligatory, as shown in (8). For instance, only the plural form of the determiner these is available with a plural noun boys (8a) but not with a singular noun boy (8c). The contrast between (8b) and (8d) points to the same conclusion.

To account for the obligatory co-occurrence of number morphemes shown in English (8), Wiltschko (2008) proposes the syntactic operation Agree, in the sense of Chomsky (2000; 2001). For example, in English (8), D is a controller of number agreement, and bears unvalued number features that have to be valued by those matching features. Matching features are provided by a head such as Num (see (6)); for example, we propose that those features can be either [+plural] or [–plural].10 Subsequent to this matching and valuation, spell out applies and the relevant exponent that is most compatible with the feature bundles resulting from Agree will realize the relevant head. Otherwise, the derivation will crash. Thus, in English (8), in order to be grammatical, the unvalued number feature on D must be obligatorily valued by the matching feature on Num. For instance, as the noun is plural boys in (8a), Num is associated with feature [+plural], and thus the unvalued feature on D is valued as [+plural] and D is spelled out as these. Consequently, in (8b), the singular determiner this cannot realize D when it appears with the plural noun boys. In this case, match and value cannot take place, and the result is ungrammatical, as shown in (8b). Under this view of Agree, as Wiltschko (2008) argues, the obligatory agreement in English follows from the obligatoriness of the operation Agree.11

Turning to Halkomelem, the data in (7) shows that there is no obligatory co-occurrence of the number morphemes on a determiner and its noun, which must be the result of a different operation than Agree (Wiltschko 2008). Note that neither this paper nor Wiltschko’s suggests that Agree is optional. What is proposed in Wiltschko (2008), which we assume in this paper, is that the optional presence of number morphemes shown in data such as in Halkomelem (7) suggests that Agree is not playing a role in the appearance of number morphology in the language, contrary to English (see (8)). For example, the plural determiner ye cannot be the result of spell out of valued number feature, as suggested by the fact that it is compatible with either a singular (7a) or plural noun (7c). Moreover, the singular determiner te is compatible with a plural noun (7b) or a singular noun (7d), which suggests that te cannot be also the result of feature valuation in Agree. Unlike in English (8), then, the relevant number feature cannot be associated with a head such as Num that values unvalued features on another head such as D. Upon the consequence that Agree does not play a role in the domain of number in Halkomelem, it is proposed that the relevant number feature in the language is a modifying feature that is not capable of valuing features on other heads, such as determiners. Following this insight of Wiltschko (2008), we indicate a modifying plural feature as a monovalent feature, [plural].

As a modifying feature which cannot value an unvalued feature on a head, the feature [plural] optionally adjoins to a relevant phrase; in informal terms, it can appear either on a determiner or a noun or both.12 Nothing in the system forces or prohibits its presence or absence. For instance, a modifying feature [plural] can appear on a noun, giving rise to a plural noun such as s-í:wí:qe ‘men’, and it is compatible with a singular determiner. The same plural noun is also compatible with a plural determiner, when the [plural] feature appears on the determiner yielding a plural determiner. Thus, the analysis of the plural in the language as a modifier accounts for the optional number morphemes on nouns.

That the interpretation of singular nouns in Halkomelem is different from that in an English-type language provides further support to the view that the plural in Halkomelem is a modifier, rather than being a head plural as in English. Nouns in Halkomelem that lack plural marking receive an unmarked interpretation, i.e., a number-neutral interpretation, rather than a singular reading as in languages like English, as shown in (9). In (9a), a plural-marked noun appears giving rise to plural interpretation. In (9b), a singular form of the same noun appears; however, it is unmarked in number, giving rise to either singular or plural interpretation. As for the plural noun in (9a), it is interpreted as plural.13

If Halkomelem were a head plural language, then every DP would include a head such as Num, which would have a head feature, e.g., either [+plural] or [–plural]. In the presence of [+plural] in Num, the noun would be interpreted as plural; on the other hand, in the presence of [–plural] in Num, the noun would be interpreted as singular. However, this is not the case in Halkomelem, as shown in (9): the noun has either a plural or number-neutral interpretation. Rather, the facts in (9) suggest that as in the case of (7) discussed above, the relevant number feature in the language is a modifier. If a modifying plural feature such as [plural] is present, a plural interpretation will result as shown with a plural noun as in (9a). In the absence of number marking, the plural feature is absent entirely, and an unmarked interpretation will be observed, either plural or singular, as in (9b).

Another property that follows from the analysis of the Halkomelem plural as a modifier, rather than a feature on a head, is the absence of form-meaning mismatches. For instance, in languages with grammatical gender, sometimes the gender of a noun does not match the gender of the entity it denotes (e.g., the German noun Mädchen ‘girl’ is neuter, rather than feminine; Wiltschko 2008). This type of mismatch can be observed because gender as a grammatical (i.e., inflectional) category does not have to encode natural sex-based gender, although it has to encode grammatical gender. Given that a grammatical category is represented as a head in syntax, Wiltschko (2008) predicts that a head can show a similar type of mismatch but a modifier cannot. Thus, a head plural such as English –s is predicted to show a similar type of mismatch, while a modifying plural as in Halkomelem is predicted not to show such type of mismatch. In the category of number, a similar kind of form-meaning mismatch to gender is the case of pluralia tantum, that is, nouns which appear with plural marking, even when they refer to a singular entity, as in English pants and scissors. As English –s instantiates a head plural, the presence of pluralia tantum in the language is expected. In contrast, Halkomelem has no pluralia tantum, which is also well predicted from its having a modifying plural (Wiltschko 2008); the Halkomelem plural marker is used only when denoting a plural referent. In other words, there is no mismatch in number between a plural marker and a noun with which it occurs: a plural-marked form always matches with a plural meaning, and is never used with a singular referent. This lack of pluralia tantum, along with the set of data in (7)–(9), supports the view that the Halkomelem plural is a modifier, in contrast to the English head plural on a Num head.14

Turning to Korean, we demonstrate that the Korean plural marker –tul should be classified as a modifying plural, not a head plural, as summarized in Table 2.15 In this section, we demonstrate properties of modifying plural (i)–(iii) for –tul as indicated in Table 2, and in Section 4, we show property (iv) for –tul, namely that it modifies the nP projection.

Like bare nouns in Halkomelem, a bare noun in Korean is unmarked in number (Kang 1994), as shown in (10). In (10a), for instance, the bare noun salam ‘person’ can be interpreted as either singular or plural.

The unmarked status of a bare noun is further supported by the fact that it can appear in a plural context as shown in (11) (Kang 1994):

In (11), nouns in a bare form sakwa ‘apple’ or salam ‘student’ are grammatical in a plural context indicated by a numeral and a classifier, e.g., twu myeng ‘two CL’. As with Kang (1994), we conclude that the bare form of a noun (i.e., not marked as plural) in Korean semantically includes both singular and plural individuals. In other words, in the terms of Wiltschko (2008), the bare form of a noun in Korean is unmarked in number, giving rise to a number-neutral interpretation (either a singular or plural interpretation), just like the singular form of a noun in Halkomelem.

In contrast, a noun is interpreted only as plural when it appears with the plural marker –tul, as shown in (12). The data in (11) together with that in (12) shows that the plural marker –tul is optional for a plural interpretation, similar to the plural in Halkomelem, suggesting that the Korean one is also a modifying plural.

As discussed for Halkomelem in the previous section, the absence of –tul as shown in (10), in contrast to its presence (12), would result in a singular interpretation if the feature indicated by the plural –tul were a head feature such as on Num. However, this is not the case, as suggested by the number-neutral interpretation of bare nouns, shown in (10). Thus, we conclude that the feature associated with –tul is a modifying feature, i.e., a monovalent feature [plural] that can adjoin to a relevant phrase in the nominal domain.

More support for –tul as a modifying plural comes from the optional presence of number morphemes, similar to that in Halkomelem discussed in the previous section. The pattern in Korean is presented in (13)–(14) (adapted from Kang 1994).16

Just like in Halkomelem, in Korean, either a singular form of a noun (13a)17 or a plural form of a noun (13b) is compatible with the singular form of a determiner.18 Either form of a noun is also compatible with the plural form of a determiner in the language, as shown in (14). The observed pattern in Korean can be understood as the workings of a modifying plural that cannot value an unvalued feature on a head, not as the workings of a head plural. For example, the plural form of the noun sakwa-tul ‘apple-PL’ is the result of an optional modifying feature [plural] on the noun. As such, it is compatible with a singular determiner i/ce/ku (13b) or with a plural determiner i-tul/ce-tul/ku-tul as in (14b). There is no need of matching and valuing, as there is no such formal feature to be matched and valued.19

Korean, like Halkomelem, has no examples of pluralia tantum, providing further support for the proposed account in this paper that –tul is a modifying plural. For example, in Korean, nouns that are pluralia tantum in English are all marked as singular, unlike in English and many related languages, as shown in (15). All nouns in (15) are singular, that is, lacking the plural marker.

Marking these nouns with –tul results in an interpretation of plurality; for example, for the noun in (15a), paci-tul ‘pants-PL’ means multiple pairs of pants, suggesting that –tul, like the Halkomelem plural, is a modifier that indicates plurality, rather than a grammatical plural feature; since modifiers must be interpreted, this kind of form-meaning mismatch is impossible. The discussed data suggests that –tul shows the properties of a modifying plural, rather than a head plural. In what follows, we show that –tul modifies nP, rather than the RootP as in Halkomelem.

It has often been observed that plural markers in classifier languages tend to be associated with definite readings, or that they occur more often in definite than indefinite contexts (e.g., Iljic 1994; Li 1999; Ghomeshi 2003), and this is often interpreted as meaning that the plural marker itself encodes definiteness. Moreover, in Korean literature, there seems to be underlying assumption that –tul marks definiteness.27 For example, –tul is obligatory when a noun appears with demonstrative (ku) (Suh 2005; 2008, citing Sohn 1999) (see (27a)).28 However, this does not seem to be true in Korean as well as in other languages that have a plural marker similar to –tul.

For example, Ghomeshi (2003) shows that the Persian plural marker –ha does not itself encode definiteness. The Korean plural marker –tul behaves in a similar way, as illustrated in (27).

In (27), the object of the verb coha ‘like’ is definite regardless of the presence (27a) or absence (27b) of plural –tul. It is interpreted as being definite because of the presence of demonstrative ku, rather than the plural marker. The fact shown in (27) suggests that plural –tul per se does not mark definiteness, which is further supported by the fact that –tul can appear with an indefinite interpretation (see (29)–(30) below).

Nakanishi & Tomioka (2004), and Nomoto (2013) make similar claims about the Japanese plural marker, –tati.29 Here, we make a similar claim for Korean –tul and we present the evidence in (28), provided by the above authors to argue against a definite interpretation of a plural marker –tati. (The list of evidence in (28) is not exhaustive, and we do not discuss evidence irrelevant to Korean).

If –tul is a marker of definiteness, it should not be able to receive an indefinite reading. This prediction is not borne out, as illustrated in (29)–(30) (adapted from Kwon & Zribi-Hertz 2004):30

In both examples, the –tul-marked nouns allow an indefinite reading, contrary to the prediction of an analysis of –tul as a definite marker, which would predict that the interpretation of (29) would be ‘Minna didn’t read the books’, and (30) would be interpreted as ‘Chelsu wants to meet the politicians’.

While the -tul-marked nouns in (29) and (30) take obligatory wide scope, there are also contexts in which a noun marked with –tul is obligatorily interpreted as taking narrow scope, which is a property typically associated with bare plural nouns (i.e., lacking any D), and impossible for definite noun phrases (Carlson 1977). Nakanishi & Tomioka (2004) demonstrate this for the Japanese plural –tati, and a relevant example is replicated for –tul in (31).

A salient reading of this type of example in (31) is (i), where the –tul-marked noun ai-tul takes a narrow scope with respect to the quantification adverb hangsang ‘always’. This is contrary to the prediction of an analysis of –tul as a definiteness marker. A wide scope reading of the –tul-marked noun as in (ii) is not favored. Moreover, the interpretation of ai-tul in (31) is indefinite, similar to (29) and (30), and definite reading is not allowed. The possible and impossible readings in (31) constitute strong evidence that –tul cannot be a marker of definiteness.

Another piece of evidence showing that –tul does not mark definiteness comes from the fact that –tul-marked nouns can appear in existential constructions. In English, only indefinite DPs can occur in existential sentences, as shown in (32) below (adapted from Suh 2005: 778):32

If –tul indicated definiteness, it would be predicted to be disallowed in an existential construction as in the English examples (32c) and (32d); however, it can appear in existential sentences (33).

This is further evidence that –tul-marked nouns are not necessarily definite.

More evidence against –tul as a definite marker comes from copula sentences with predicate nominals. Predicate nominals are those which ascribe some property to the subject, as in (34).

In (34), without the definite article, students is a predicate nominal, ascribing the property of being a student to each of the individuals denoted by the subject pronoun. The sentence is also grammatical with the definite article, but the reading is different: the sentence is then an equative sentence, equating the group of individuals denoted by the subject with some definite, specific group of students (under discussion). Thus, while both definite and indefinite DPs can appear in copula sentences in English, only indefinite DPs allow a predicative interpretation. This is expected, as it is frequently claimed that bare N(P)s denote predicates, while higher projections (like DP) are needed to convert this predicate into an individual so it can act as an argument (e.g., Longobardi 1994; Chierchia 1998; Zamparelli 2000; Déchaine & Wiltschko 2002; Borer 2005, among others). Given that only an indefinite DP can be a predicate, Korean –tul-marked nouns should be disallowed as a predicate if they are definite. However, this prediction is not borne out; as shown in (35), –tul-marked nouns can act as predicates:34

Here, the plural-marked noun haksayng-tul is acting as a predicate nominal, which means that –tul is not marking it as definite.

The next two pieces of evidence for the ability of –tul-marked nouns to be indefinite come from similarities of –tul to Japanese –tati in two contexts identified by Nakanishi & Tomioka (2004) for Japanese: (i) being modified by a wh-demonstrative, and (ii) being an antecedent of a sluiced element. First, –tul-marked nouns can be modified by the wh-demonstrative etten ‘which/what kind’, like –tati. Nouns with this kind of modifier must be indefinite; what kind of (*the) students is grammatical only without the definite article. The fact that, in Korean, –tul-marked nouns may receive this modifier suggests that they must be indefinite in a context like (36):

Another piece of evidence comes from sluicing. It has been shown by Chung et al. (1995) that, while weak indefinites may serve as the antecedent of sluiced elements, definite and strongly quantified DPs may not, as shown in (37) for English (Nakanishi & Tomioka 2004: 122), which has been shown to apply to –tati:

Korean –tul-marked noun phrases can appear as the antecedent of sluicing, as shown in (38):

The plural noun ai-tul ‘children’ in the first clause in (38) serves as the antecedent of the sluiced phrase etten ai-tul ‘which children’ in the second clause, which should be possible only if the antecedent is indefinite. The sentence is predicted to be ungrammatical if –tul marks definiteness, contrary to fact.

The final piece of evidence that –tul does not mark definiteness comes from its possible co-occurrence with the distributivity marker –ssik. Choe (1987) argues that –ssik falls into a class of distributivity markers that he refers to as anti-quantifiers, which include the so-called “shifted each”35 in the English sentence (39):

In (39), the shifted each is analyzed as a distributivity marker situated in the DP headed by balloon, which indicates that there is one balloon per child – that is, the balloons are distributed among the children. Among the properties of these anti-quantifiers is that the accompanying noun phrase must be indefinite, as is the case with a balloon in (39). This is also true with anti-quantifier –ssik in Korean as illustrated in (40).

As shown in (40), –ssik cannot co-occur with a demonstrative, which would force a definite reading. Another property that –ssik and shifted each share is that both are most natural with direct objects (in Korean, accusative-marked phrases), as in both (39) and (40).

In Korean, noun phrases marked by –ssik can include –tul, as shown in (41). This example is similar to the one provided in Choe (1987) except for the insertion of –tul on the accusative object ‘balloon’ (adapted from Choe 1987: 46).36

Given that –ssik obligatorily appears with an indefinite noun, the fact that the co-occurrence of –tul and –ssik on a single noun is grammatical suggests that –tul does not mark definiteness.

The data discussed in this section suggests that –tul does not mark definiteness, and that –tul-marked nouns may receive a (weak) indefinite interpretation. We conclude that the assumption that –tul is a definiteness marker is incorrect.

The conclusion from the previous section in which –tul cannot be a definiteness marker is contrary to the analysis of Park (2008). Park provides an account of –tul set in the theoretical framework of Borer (2005), as illustrated in (42). In Borer’s framework, nP is dominated by a series of functional projections, each making a semantic contribution to the interpretation of the DP as a whole. The lowest functional projection is DivP; the Div head divides this mass to give a count interpretation. In English, this is realized by the plural marker, while in classifier languages, this is normally seen to be the role of the classifier (see Section 1). The next functional head is #, which counts this divided mass; this is realized by numerals and certain quantifiers. Finally, DP provides definiteness, strong quantification, and an argumental interpretation, following Longobardi (1994).37

In Park’s analysis, –tul is base-generated as a Div head; N subsequently undergoes head movement to Div. –Tul moves along with N up to #, to provide a plural, counted interpretation, and finally to D, as shown in (42), providing an argumental, definite interpretation. According to Park (2008), –tul plays the roles of the heads Div, #, and D, as made possible via head movement.

The first objection to the analysis in Park (2008) is that –tul cannot be a head in the nominal spine, regardless of the type of head, as demonstrated in Section 2. If –tul were a head in the nominal spine as proposed in Park (2008), the relevant properties of –tul as a modifying plural shown in Section 2 could not be accounted for; moreover, the properties of –tul adjoining to nP shown in Section 4 cannot be accounted for either, as –tul in Park (2008) initially occupies Div, a head higher than nP. In the rest of this section, we discuss Park’s claim that –tul occupies the # and D heads, and conclude that the claim makes incorrect predictions.38 We discuss three aspects of Park’s proposal crucial to her analysis of –tul in D: (i) –tul has similar semantics to the English quantifier all; (ii) –tul cannot play the role of a predicate; and (iii) –tul gives a strong reading, such that N-tul scopes over all other modifiers in a sentence. As for the first piece of evidence, Park shows that –tul shows similar semantic properties to English all (following Brisson’s 2003 analysis of all), and takes this as evidence that N-tul must be a quantified DP. However, while this seems to capture the semantics of –tul, it does not imply a syntactic analysis in which N-tul must occupy the # and D nodes. For example, all itself does not necessarily occupy either of these nodes, as shown by examples like all the children, in which all is generated in spec-#P and moves to spec-DP, modifying both projections, while the occupies the # and D heads (Borer 2005). Therefore, Park’s semantic analysis of –tul does not force a syntactic analysis in which –tul occupies either # or D.

The second aspect of Park’s argument is the claim that her proposal correctly predicts that –tul-marked nouns cannot occur as predicates. This is predicted by Longobardi’s (1994) account of arguments and predicates, in which NPs are predicates, while D serves the function of saturating the predicate and allowing the phrase to function as an argument. Therefore, NPs are predicates, and DPs are arguments, so if N-tul is a DP, then it must not be able to function as a predicate. Park shows examples of N-tul in predicate position, and marks them as ungrammatical, which suggests that N-tul is necessarily an argument, and therefore DP. However, as shown above in (35), nouns marked with –tul can in fact occur as predicates for the speakers that we consulted.39 Given this variation, the analysis proposed in Park (2008) would leave the well-formed data unaccounted for, and cannot be strongly endorsed.40 Finally, Park’s analysis of N-tul as a quantified DP would predict that –tul-marked nouns obligatorily receive a strong reading (definite or specific indefinite), and so must receive wide scope with respect to other operators in the sentence. However, as shown in (31) in Section 5.1, in which ai-tul ‘child-PL’ receives narrow scope with respect to hangsang ‘always’, this is also not necessarily the case. Therefore, Park’s claim that –tul-marked nouns move to D is not supported.

Park also claims that her analysis correctly predicts the distribution of –tul-marked nouns with respect to numerals and classifiers. The structure for sakwa sey-kay ‘apple three-CL’ under Park’s analysis is shown in (43):41

In (43), since the Div and # heads are occupied by sey-kay ‘three-CL’, there is no room for –tul to occupy these heads; therefore, under Park’s analysis of –tul realizing Div and #, –tul should be unable to co-occur with numerals and classifiers, or with numerals in the absence of classifiers. Park supports this prediction with multiple examples of –tul-marked nouns with numerals, some with a classifier (44) and some without a classifier (45), all marked as ungrammatical.

As mentioned above, in Park’s (2008) analysis, –tul functions both to divide and count the denotation of the noun, and so it realizes both Div and #, as shown in (42). Park assumes that numerals in Korean also serve both to divide and count (i.e., they realize both Div and #), both when they occur with a classifier as a complex word, as in (43), and when they appear alone (see Footnote 41). Thus, Park argues that –tul cannot appear either with a numeral and classifier together, as in (44), or with a numeral alone, as in (45). However, Park’s evidence is not sufficient as it does not include the core distribution of –tul, namely its occurrence on human nouns: with human nouns, –tul can appear with classifiers or numerals, as shown in (4) in Section 1 and (46)–(47) below. The co-occurrence of –tul and a classifier or –tul and a numeral are acceptable when a noun is human, as shown in (46) and (47) respectively. Thus, Park’s argument that –tul realizes a Div or # head and so cannot co-occur with a classifier or numeral makes an incorrect prediction.

Moreover, with respect to Park’s data with animals or inanimates as in (44)–(45) which is shown to be ungrammatical, Park fails to note speaker variation. Some speakers reject the co-occurrence as in Park (44)–(45), but others accept such examples. Variation in judgement is well expected by the proposed account in this paper: –tul is a modifier of nP, where idiosyncratic properties are observed.

To summarize this section, we gave the following main reasons for rejecting Park’s analysis. First, as extensively demonstrated throughout the paper, plural –tul is a modifier adjoining to nP, rather than a head in the nominal spine such as Div, # or D, contrary to Park (2008). Second, while –tul appears to have similar semantics to English all, this does not constitute evidence that it occupies D, as all itself is not in complementary distribution with determiners. Third, as we show in Section 5.1, –tul-marked nouns do not necessarily receive wide scope with respect to other operators, and can appear as predicates. Finally, –tul is not in complementary distribution with numerals or classifiers, contrary to Park’s prediction. Therefore, we conclude that Park’s (2008) claim that –tul occupies the Div, #, and D heads is not supported, and thus, –tul cannot be a head plural, as proposed in this paper.