Concord and Prequantifiers in Russian numeral constructions

It has been widely noted that in Russian numeral constructions containing lower numerals [2, 3, 4], the adjective appears in genitive plural while the noun appears in genitive singular (1). This number mismatch doesn’t occur with higher numerals (2). 1)  tri krasn-yx stul-a
three-NOM red-GEN.PL chair-GEN.SG ‘three red chairs’ 2)  pjat’ krasn-yx stul-ev
five-NOM red-GEN.PL chair-GEN.PL ‘five red chairs’ There also exists a class of adjectives which can appear to the left of the numeral, which are referred to as prequantifiers (Babby 1987). These adjectives modify the numeral only and only appear to the left. Surprisingly, unlike other adjectives, these adjectives can appear in both genitive plural, like other adjectives within the numeral phrase, and in nominative plural (3a-b). 3) a. obr-yx pjat’ butylok-Ø vin-a good-GEN.PL five-NOM GEN.PL wine-GEN.SG
‘a good five bottles of wine’ b. dobr-ye pjat’ butylok- Ø vin-a good-NOM.PL five-NOM GEN.PL wine-GEN.SG
‘a good five bottles of wine’ bottles- bottles- Since prequantifiers can appear before the numeral in both genitive plural and nominative plural, any proposed structure for them must be able to account for both patterns. It should also be able to account for the number mismatch as demonstrated in (1). I propose a different approach to the case assignment patterns with prequantifiers, than the tertiary branching tree structure proposed by Babby (1987), accounting for both genitive and nominative patterns (3). This analysis follows the idea that genitive is a default case within the NP (cf. Pesetsky 2013). I adopt Pesetsky’s proposal that the noun enters the derivation in ‘primeval’ genitive. As the noun merges with other heads, it receives that respective case, with only the outermost case being pronounced. The noun also lacks a number feature. The noun then merges with an instance of number to satisfy this feature. He identifies these lower numerals as free- standing instances of number (NBR), carrying the feature [-singular]. When an adjective is merged, it agrees with NBR by realizing [-singular] as plural morphology. The numeral then moves to the complement of D (by head movement). As a result, nominative can only percolate to the numeral. In order to account for the position of the prequantifier, I suggest that the prequantifier and the numeral move as a unit (NumP) to the complement of D, undergoing what Yuan (2017) calls ‘phrasal undermerge’ (see also McCloskey 1984). Following Pesetsky (2013), I posit that the numeral blocks percolation of nominative case, so that the lower adjectives and the noun appear in default genitive, as per the domain restriction on case percolation features restricting percolation to the complement. However, I argue that numerals also block percolation of structural case within the NumP, because they are incapable of carrying structural case features. To explain the blocking effect, I adopt a condition on feature percolation, which restricts percolation to only elements that can carry the relevant features. Note, however, that numerals do allow percolation of lexical case and show distinct forms for lexical case. To account for this difference, I suggest that numerals do carry lexical case features (see also Assmann et.al. 2014).