Numerals and their Position in Universal Grammar

Abstract

One of Greenberg's claims concerning the appearance of numerals as modifiers concerns the order of the elements, suggesting that post-nominal numerals are " favored in indefinite and approximate constructions " . Examining a small but representative body of data from a variety of languages, and one of the common grammaticalisation targets of singular numerals, the indefinite article, we conclude that the generalisation does not have a universal status, and exists at best as a statistical universal.