Numerative constructions with exhaustive meaning in typological perspective

This paper presents a typological investigation of numerative constructions with exhaustive meaning based on data collected from 105 languages. By numerative constructions with exhaustive meaning I understand such cases where a quantifying group indicates a selection of N items out of a set with N items in total, cf. English both, French tous les trois ‘all the three’, or Chuvash ik aʨ-i꞊de [two child-P_3꞊ADD] ‘both children’. This study aims at identifying possible strategies of forming such constructions in the languages of the world and their distribution. In a number of languages, numerative constructions with exhaustive meaning are formed by using morphological markers or syntactic constructions which occur in other grammatical functions as well. In such cases, I take into consideration those adjacent functions and their possible semantic relations with exhaustive meaning in numerative constructions.