Understanding 「幼児と保育士８人を」


From

> 今なお **幼児と保育士８人を** 人質にこの保育園に立てこもっております

I'm assuming the bolded phrase is parsed as:

> (幼児と保育士)(８人)を

where both "幼児と保育士" and "８人" are noun phrases.

**Question:** Why is no connective used to combine these two noun phrases
(e.g. の)? Are they considered to be connected appositionally?




For Determiner-Quantifiers you can follow one of these patterns (D-Quantifier
examples: two students, a sailor, many sailors):

>   1. QE + no + NP + CM
>   2. NP + QE + CM
>   3. NP + CM + QE
>

Where QE means Quantity Expression, NP means Noun Phrase and CM means Case
Marker (postposition).

Add to that that you can shift quantifiers around (they float) to some degree,
then you see that there really is not only _one_ way to express quantities.

So in your case, it's construction 2.

> NP + QE + CM
>
> Nurse + 8 person + OBJ Marker

Be aware that **you can't just swap any construction for the other** at all
times! For example, phrases describing amount like "takusan 'many', syoosuu
'small number', tasuu 'large number'" are not usable with construction 2
(NP+QE+CM).

  1. John wa takusan no hon wo yonda.
  2. *John wa hon takusan wo yonda.
  3. John wa hon wo takusan yonda.  
_'John read many books.'_

In this example, takusan ("many") is not compatible. An indicator is that
those words not fitting for construction 2 **can't be the argument of a verb
independently** :

*Takusan wo suisensita. ( _[someone] recommended small number/many_ )  
San-nin wo suisensita. ( _[someone] recommended three_ )




For Determiner-Quantifiers you can follow one of these patterns (D-Quantifier
examples: two students, a sailor, many sailors):

>   1. QE + no + NP + CM
>   2. NP + QE + CM
>   3. NP + CM + QE
>

Where QE means Quantity Expression, NP means Noun Phrase and CM means Case
Marker (postposition).

Add to that that you can shift quantifiers around (they float) to some degree,
then you see that there really is not only _one_ way to express quantities.

So in your case, it's construction 2.

> NP + QE + CM
>
> Nurse + 8 person + OBJ Marker

Be aware that **you can't just swap any construction for the other** at all
times! For example, phrases describing amount like "takusan 'many', syoosuu
'small number', tasuu 'large number'" are not usable with construction 2
(NP+QE+CM).

  1. John wa takusan no hon wo yonda.
  2. *John wa hon takusan wo yonda.
  3. John wa hon wo takusan yonda.  
_'John read many books.'_

In this example, takusan ("many") is not compatible. An indicator is that
those words not fitting for construction 2 **can't be the argument of a verb
independently** :

*Takusan wo suisensita. ( _[someone] recommended small number/many_ )  
San-nin wo suisensita. ( _[someone] recommended three_ )

