Un aspecto de la sintaxis de los cardinales complejos

Abstract

This work tries to give an answer to the question of why in Spanish the first member of a complex numeral obtained by addition cannot be coordinated, while the first member of one involving multiplication can: the sequence treinta o cuarenta y uno can only mean 30 or 41, while tres o cuatro mil may mean 3 or 4000, but may also mean 3000 or 4000. We argue that the restriction follows if derivations involving complex specifiers are disprefered when the meaning obtained would be the same that one obtains in a derivation not involving them.

Keywords

• cardinal numbers
• coordination
• derivation
• complex specifiers
• economy