ИСТИНА

he presentation is addressed the corpus grammar of Russian quantifier phrases (QPs), with focus on two issues: (i) subject-predicate agreement patterns in sentences with a QP in the position of a grammatical subject, (b) the choice of the agreeing/non-agreeing form of the adjective in QPs with an embedded NP with the head noun in the feminine gender. QPs license both the plural and the singular form of the predicate. In the initial section, I also discuss a number of methodological issues related to the validation of the formal models and checking of theoretically non-neutral descriptions. I argue that the singular form optionally shown on the predicate instantiates non-canonic agreement controlled by the QP and does not pattern with the so called default agreement in 3Sg.N. The analysis is based on the complete statistics of all Russian cardinal numerals used in the RNC in QPs of the type два человека/ пять человек in the Russian National Corpora. I show the correlations between plural/singular agreement forms, word order (QP ―V ~ V ―QP) and communicative status of QP. The choice of the agreeing preposed NP-level adjective as in dve interesnye knigi does not constrain the form of the predicate agreement, while agreeing DP-level elements as in eti dve knigi blocks the singular form on the predicate. Russian subject QPs are non-canonic arguments, since in the two thirds of the corpus data they lack the status of a theme.