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In the present monograph, we will deal with questions of lexical typology in the nominal domain. By the term "lexical typology in the nominal domain", we refer to crosslinguistic regularities in the interaction between (a) those areas of the lexicon whose elements are capable of being used in the construction of "referring phrases" or "terms" and (b) the grammatical patterns in which these elements are involved. In the traditional analyses of a language such as English, such phrases are called "nominal phrases". In the study of the lexical aspects of the relevant domain, however, we will not confine ourselves to the investigation of "nouns" and "pronouns" but intend to take into consideration all those parts of speech which systematically alternate with nouns, either as heads or as modifiers of nominal phrases. In particular, this holds true for adjectives both in English and in other Standard European Languages. It is well known that adjectives are often difficult to distinguish from nouns, or that elements with an overt adjectival marker are used interchangeably with nouns, especially in particular semantic fields such as those denoting MATERIALS or NATlONALlTIES. That is, throughout this work the expression "lexical typology in the nominal domain" should not be interpreted as "a typology of nouns", but, rather, as the cross-linguistic investigation of lexical areas constitutive for "referring phrases" irrespective of how the parts-of-speech system in a specific language is defined.
The present paper deals with selected morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic characteristics of nominal totalizers in German and in Brazilian Portuguese. In particular, it analyzes the elements 'todo', 'cada', 'ambos' and 'os dois', as well as 'alle', 'jeder', 'der ganze' and 'beide'. In terms of morphology, it describes the formation of gender, number and case forms. In the field of syntax, it focuses on the position of totalizers in the nominal phrase, their relations to determiners and quantifiers, and the functional distribution of declension types. In terms of semantics and pragmatics, it investigates the codification of referential and quantificational information, definiteness and cumulative v distributive totalization. The epistemological interest is defined by the objectives of linguistic comparison between German and Brazilian Portuguese, including the analysis of typical errors committed by language learners in both directions.