Subject-verb Agreement in Constructions with Quantifiers in Russian

Abstract

The agreement of subject and predicate in Russian is actually much less trivial than it might seem at first glance. This paper deals with the case when the subject is realized by a combination of a noun with a quantifier. I analyze a set of examples with the words двое, трое, пара, тройка, десяток, сотня, тысяча, миллион and миллиард where there is a variation in predicate number agreement. Using Random Forest, CIT and Logistic Regression algorithms I prove that collective (двое, трое) and non-collective (пара, тройка, десяток, сотня, тысяча, миллион, миллиард) quantifiers exhibit different patterns of agreement. The first group tends to trigger more plural agreement, while for the second one singular agreement is more typical. Moreover, the quantifier phrase position relative to the predicate can also influence the choice of number marker on the verb.