Partitive and Counting Phrases in Polish: A Nanosyntactic Analysis of Syncretism

Abstract

This paper investigates syncretism in Polish pseudo-partitive and counting phrases, where different forms of the same noun appear in context as ‘a piece of apple’, ‘two apples’, and ‘five apples’. These contexts exhibit three distinct syncretism patterns: AAB, ABC, and ABA, depending on whether suffixes are repeated or differ across forms. The analysis focuses on how suffixes signal distinctions in number and countability, drawing on the nanosyntactic framework. By applying the Lexicalization Algorithm, the paper shows how noun structures grow incrementally and how suffixes compete for lexicalization. Special attention is paid to the ABA pattern in feminine nouns, where the same suffix appears in the genitive singular and genitive plural, but not in the nominative plural – a configuration rarely attested cross-linguistically. The findings provide evidence for fine-grained syntactic structure and illustrate how syncretism patterns reflect the underlying functional sequence.