Маркирование по числу у различных классов слов (на материале нахско-дагестанских языков)Number Marking Across Different Word Classes in the East Caucasian Languages

The dissertation is dedicated to number marking across lexical classes in the East Caucasian language family. I focus on non-nominal number and specialized number marking, i.e. those instances where number is not cumulated with other categories, such as gender or definiteness. Investigating these patterns in genealogical, areal, and diachronic perspective allows me to describe specialized number marking in East Caucasian and hypothesize how number marking phenomena may arise.In particular, I investigate number marking on adjectives and verbs across East Caucasian. Then I discuss in more detail number marking in dialects of Andi.First, it turned out that what looks like number marking may instantiate different phenomena, depending on lexical class and syntactic context: genuine number (nominal and pronominal number, number expressed on modifiers, verbal number), number agreement or allocutive number marking.Second, number marking on adjectives and verbs is conditioned differently in different languages. Possible conditions include 1) lexical (some lexemes are marked for number, while others are not), 2) full / short form (for adjectives), 3) animacy of the NP head or verb’s argument, 4) TAM-form of the verb. Besides, in some languages number marking in certain lexical classes may be obligatory or impossible altogether.Third, diachronic sources of specialized number marking include nominal plural markers (with adjectives and verbs alike), distributive marking (with adjectives) and full / contrastive morphology (with adjectives). For many patterns, diachronic sources have not been identified. In several East Caucasian languages, number agreement or agreement-like phenomena may have been borrowed under contact influence.