Nilo-Saharan languages are well-known for their complicated system of nominal number marking, which features a variety of singulative and plural affixes (Dimmendaal 2000). Even though these systems have received some attention in the typological literature, there has been limited theoretical work on their implications for the morphosyntax of number cross-linguistically. The goal of this paper is to fill this gap, by providing an analysis of nominal number morphology in Kipsigis (Nilotic, Kenya), based on data from original fieldwork. First, I show that singulatives in Kipsigis are true allomorphs of singular number, unlike singulatives with a classifier function in languages like Ojibwe (Mathieu 2012). The descriptive term ‘singulative’ is therefore misleading, as it corresponds to two very different types of morphemes. Second, I claim that the tripartite system of number marking of Kipsigis and other Nilo-Saharan languages is due to the classification of nouns into morphosyntactic classes defined by the presence of inherent number features on little n; the interaction of these features with interpretable number features on the functional projection Num (Ritter 1991 a.o.) in the post-syntactic component gives rise to the exponence pattern that we observe. Finally, my analysis corroborates the existence of noun classification based on number, which has only been argued for Kiowa-Tanoan before (Harbour 2007). The existence of three number classes in Kipsigis can only be explained by reference to bivalent number features; number-based noun classification systems thus strongly support the view that number features are bivalent and not privative, which is also argued by Harbour (2007, 2011) for Kiowa.

中文翻译：

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基于数的名词分类

尼罗撒哈拉语言以其复杂的名义数字标记系统而闻名，该系统具有各种单数和复数词缀（Dimmendaal 2000）。尽管这些系统在类型学文献中受到了一些关注，但关于它们对跨语言的数字形态句法的影响的理论工作仍然有限。本文的目标是填补这一空白，根据原始实地调查的数据，对 Kipsigis（肯尼亚尼罗河）的名义数形态进行分析。首先，我表明 Kipsigis 中的单数是单数的真正同形异形，这与 Ojibwe 等语言中具有分类函数的单数不同（Mathieu 2012）。因此，描述性术语“单数”具有误导性，因为它对应于两种截然不同的语素类型。第二，我声称 Kipsigis 和其他尼罗撒哈拉语言的数字标记三方系统是由于将名词分类为形态句法类别，这些类别由小 n 上固有数字特征的存在所定义；这些特征与后句法组件中函数投影 Num (Ritter 1991 ao) 上可解释的数字特征的相互作用产生了我们观察到的指数模式。最后，我的分析证实了基于数字的名词分类的存在，这在之前仅针对 Kiowa-Tanoan 进行过争论（Harbour 2007）。Kipsigis 中三个数类的存在只能通过参考二价数特征来解释；因此，基于数字的名词分类系统强烈支持数字特征是二价的而不是私有的观点，