Grammatical determiners of various sorts are differently distributed in individual languages. We will list and investigate briefl y a few related and non-related languages to survey the lexical lexemes relating to Determiner (DemPro) status vs. Article status and pronominal anaphor (PersPro). A synchronic line of discussion will be pursued. It will be crucial to see synchronically, fi rst, to which extent such determiners co-defi ne anaphors in contexts reaching beyond the single clause. Second, it will be investigated typologically what the determiner-determined features are where they are in interaction with aspect and morphological case. Third, and interlinking the synchronic and the diachronic chapters, since spoken-only codes use anaphoric determiners in ways strikingly different from their written(-only) standard varieties, processing differences will be made responsible for such a variation.
This paper discusses some typologically signifi cant correlations in nominal determination systems found in the family of Romance languages, specifi cally French, Italian, and Spanish. It proposes to reinterpret the complex system of indefi nite nominal determination in French and Italian, which both feature an indefi nite article and a partitive article, as devices of nominal classifi cation in a broad sense, marking the conceptually important distinction between a single, delimited referent and a non-delimited substance. It is argued that this classifi cation system arose when nominal declension in Latin, which differentiated these two referentially highly relevant cognitive concepts via overt gender and number affi xes, got partially or completely lost. In contrast to modern central Romance languages, like French, which require rather obligatory (indefi nite) determination in almost every argument position and have developed indefi nite articles coding countability on the level of noun phrase, modern peripheral Romance languages like Spanish allow bare arguments to a larger extent and do not possess an explicit marker of non-countability. How to position Italian in this broad typology inside the family of Romance languages will be discussed in some detail and diachronically explained by its complex evolution of its nominal paradigms.
It is assumed that the rise of the defi nite article is due to changes in the aspectual system of a language. Defi niteness and perfective aspect are shown to be just two instantiations of the same grammatical function. So are indefi niteness and imperfective aspect. Defi nite nouns and perfective verbs share identical mereological features, the same being true for indefinite nouns and imperfective verbs. Thus, defi niteness/indefi niteness and perfectivity/imperfectivity can be viewed as equivalent techniques of nominal and verbal quantifi cation. The central claim is that the definiteness effects of verbal aspect upon their ‘nouny syntactic neighbourhoods’ suffice to create complex patterns of nominal determination. The complexity is the result of combining aspect with a paradigmatic case system. One further main claim is that paradigmatic or differential case systems are characteristic of aspect languages. Complex patterns of nominal determination which involve the ‘support’ of verbal aspect and of paradigmatic case systems are characteristic of Slavic languages. The same holds for older stages of the Germanic languages. No sooner than the verbal part of the pattern, aspect, was subject to erosion, the first occurrences of definite articles can be observed. There is converging evidence from linguistic typology that aspect languages tend to avoid article systems, and article languages tend to avoid aspect. The different stages of article development will be sketched, and it will finally be explained why demonstrative pronouns are the universal source of the overt marking of definiteness. This will be done in the light of Centering Theory as presented in Abraham (this volume).
The development of the definite article in Indo-European is a complex innovation, because if most modern languages have defi nite articles, there are important exceptions. In addition, within the Indo-European dialect groups the development of the definite article may not always seem consistent. Moreover, the definite article may trace back to different elements in the individual languages and its functions may vary cross-linguistically within a subgroup, possibly reflecting different degrees of grammaticalization. On the basis of patterns in early uses of definite articles in Greek and article-like uses of demonstratives in Latin, I will trace the change in question, evaluate the possible role of language contact and the possible connection with other phenomena, among them devices to express defi niteness in Indo-European languages that do not have defi nite articles. The aim of the paper is to establish whether or not the definite article is a truly innovative feature in Indo-European or whether it is merely a formal innovation of a category that existed already.
This paper investigates the evolution of nominal determination of a specific kind, viz. indefinite determination in the scope of negation. Four basic syntactic patterns of indefi nite nominal determination in the scope of negation are distinguished. The changes within the system of indefi nite determination in the history of German with respect to these four patterns are described on the basis of their distribution in a corpus of several Old and Middle High German texts. More specifi cally, the development and distribution of dehein / kein is investigated. While the original n-word determiner nehein (‘no’) and the second NPI (negative polarity item) determiner einig (‘any’) were virtually lost, dehein / kein changed from a weak NPI comparable to any and licensed in various non-affirmative contexts into an n-word.
One overlooked and highly polysemous English noun phrase form is the bare singular, i.e. a null determiner with a singular count noun complement. Occurring in all grammatical positions, this constituent shape is used in English for multiple functions. Examination of naturally occurring English data shows the conditions under which bare singulars are used as generics (with a meaning like bare plurals), as components of a predicate conveying a stereotypical activity (with an indefi nite meaning), and as markers of an identifiable referent (like nouns with definite articles, demonstratives, and possessive determiners). While generic and indefinite meanings are well documented for bare forms, the reading that picks out an identifi able referent is unexpected for a bare nominal. This range of meaning-based distinctions suggests additional theoretical consequences for cross-linguistic noun interpretation and DP-internal syntactic structure.
Italian allows for the use of the definite article in non-specific direct object NPs ( mettersi la giacca ‘put on a jacket’, avere il gatto ‘have a cat’). However, in French, the corresponding constructions typically take only the indefinite article ( se mettre un blouson, avoir un chat ). We present a corpus analysis and a questionnaire study which both establish a striking contrast between French and Italian on this point. We argue that the more widespread use of the Italian definite article in this non-specific function shows that it is further grammaticalized than its French counterpart. This conclusion calls for a reconsideration of the widespread view of French as the language with the more grammaticalized article system.
The paper discusses the functional load of definite DPs in early child German regarding sentence-internal (argument structure) and sentence-external relations (text coherence). The data consist of adult-child dialogues of two children in the period 1;11–2;11. It is argued that DPs exhibit functional load on both levels from the onset of production. Contradicting recent assumptions, (i) case-related distinctions are acquired prior to gender distinction, and (ii) children establish a functional distinction between pronominal DPs (continued or directly accessible reference) and noun-including DPs (disrupted or especially emphasized reference). The results allow the hypotheses that the noun-including DP is a functionally motivated extension of the pronominal DP and that properties relating the DP to other elements of sentence/text are the first to be acquired.
In Abraham (this volume), grammatical determiners of various sorts were discussed in regard of the extent to which such determiners co-define anaphors in contexts reaching beyond the single clause. Making use of its findings, the present discussion shows how the defi nite article emerged in the history of German from the determiner homonym and how various steps in their grammaticalization paths invite certain generalizations of diachronic change.
In this paper we take the existence of Bare Noun Phrases acting as subjects or displaced complements as evidence for the licensing properties of Functional Categories other that Determiner Phrase in earlier stages of Romance Languages such as Spanish and Catalan. The fact that in Spanish and Catalan subjects in passive sentences can be licensed inside the Verb Phrase also facilitates the use of BNPs in this context.
The suffixed definite article in Modern Norwegian developed from a clitic in Old Norse. Such a change creates interesting theoretical questions as to how we can account for this difference in phrase structural terms, and how such a change manifests itself. This paper discusses exactly this question and argues that this change can be viewed as grammaticalization “down the tree” from a high D head to a low n head. Furthermore, it argues that functional categories, like the definiteness category, are non-universal. That is, they are not part of Universal Grammar, but only arise when the child discovers them in the input. The paper also addresses some movement puzzles emerging in Old Norse and Modern Icelandic which have remained a theoretical puzzle. I will propose an analysis of this where I argue that we need to separate Modern Icelandic and Old Norse and thus give two separate analyses.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the English NP and its historical development into DP via the emergence of a functional D-system. This is related to the mechanism of theta-binding (Higginbotham 1985). The languages of the world could be described in terms of a D-system and morphological case. In addition, drawing on Abraham (1997) and Leiss (2000), I will examine if there is a complementary distribution between DP/TP and aspect. The correlation between DP/TP and aspect is observed in early child languages. This suggests that there might be a parallel between first language acquisition (ontogeny) and diachronic change (phylogeny) (cf. Osawa 2003a).
Three different nominal word orders in Old English through present-day English are investigated, in order to determine whether English has an ‘adjectival’ possessive similar to Modern Italian. It is argued that the orders a) demonstrative, possessive, noun and b) possessive, demonstrative, noun represent different syntactic constructions, with different paths of development. It is concluded that the a) order represents three different constructions: i) apposition, ii) a possible ‘adjectival’ possessive, no longer found in Middle English, iii) an Early Modern English focus construction using the proximal. The b) order represents a demonstrative in form, functioning only as a definiteness marker.
Grammatical determiners of various sorts are differently distributed in individual languages. We will list and investigate briefl y a few related and non-related languages to survey the lexical lexemes relating to Determiner (DemPro) status vs. Article status and pronominal anaphor (PersPro). A synchronic line of discussion will be pursued. It will be crucial to see synchronically, fi rst, to which extent such determiners co-defi ne anaphors in contexts reaching beyond the single clause. Second, it will be investigated typologically what the determiner-determined features are where they are in interaction with aspect and morphological case. Third, and interlinking the synchronic and the diachronic chapters, since spoken-only codes use anaphoric determiners in ways strikingly different from their written(-only) standard varieties, processing differences will be made responsible for such a variation.
This paper discusses some typologically signifi cant correlations in nominal determination systems found in the family of Romance languages, specifi cally French, Italian, and Spanish. It proposes to reinterpret the complex system of indefi nite nominal determination in French and Italian, which both feature an indefi nite article and a partitive article, as devices of nominal classifi cation in a broad sense, marking the conceptually important distinction between a single, delimited referent and a non-delimited substance. It is argued that this classifi cation system arose when nominal declension in Latin, which differentiated these two referentially highly relevant cognitive concepts via overt gender and number affi xes, got partially or completely lost. In contrast to modern central Romance languages, like French, which require rather obligatory (indefi nite) determination in almost every argument position and have developed indefi nite articles coding countability on the level of noun phrase, modern peripheral Romance languages like Spanish allow bare arguments to a larger extent and do not possess an explicit marker of non-countability. How to position Italian in this broad typology inside the family of Romance languages will be discussed in some detail and diachronically explained by its complex evolution of its nominal paradigms.
It is assumed that the rise of the defi nite article is due to changes in the aspectual system of a language. Defi niteness and perfective aspect are shown to be just two instantiations of the same grammatical function. So are indefi niteness and imperfective aspect. Defi nite nouns and perfective verbs share identical mereological features, the same being true for indefinite nouns and imperfective verbs. Thus, defi niteness/indefi niteness and perfectivity/imperfectivity can be viewed as equivalent techniques of nominal and verbal quantifi cation. The central claim is that the definiteness effects of verbal aspect upon their ‘nouny syntactic neighbourhoods’ suffice to create complex patterns of nominal determination. The complexity is the result of combining aspect with a paradigmatic case system. One further main claim is that paradigmatic or differential case systems are characteristic of aspect languages. Complex patterns of nominal determination which involve the ‘support’ of verbal aspect and of paradigmatic case systems are characteristic of Slavic languages. The same holds for older stages of the Germanic languages. No sooner than the verbal part of the pattern, aspect, was subject to erosion, the first occurrences of definite articles can be observed. There is converging evidence from linguistic typology that aspect languages tend to avoid article systems, and article languages tend to avoid aspect. The different stages of article development will be sketched, and it will finally be explained why demonstrative pronouns are the universal source of the overt marking of definiteness. This will be done in the light of Centering Theory as presented in Abraham (this volume).
The development of the definite article in Indo-European is a complex innovation, because if most modern languages have defi nite articles, there are important exceptions. In addition, within the Indo-European dialect groups the development of the definite article may not always seem consistent. Moreover, the definite article may trace back to different elements in the individual languages and its functions may vary cross-linguistically within a subgroup, possibly reflecting different degrees of grammaticalization. On the basis of patterns in early uses of definite articles in Greek and article-like uses of demonstratives in Latin, I will trace the change in question, evaluate the possible role of language contact and the possible connection with other phenomena, among them devices to express defi niteness in Indo-European languages that do not have defi nite articles. The aim of the paper is to establish whether or not the definite article is a truly innovative feature in Indo-European or whether it is merely a formal innovation of a category that existed already.
This paper investigates the evolution of nominal determination of a specific kind, viz. indefinite determination in the scope of negation. Four basic syntactic patterns of indefi nite nominal determination in the scope of negation are distinguished. The changes within the system of indefi nite determination in the history of German with respect to these four patterns are described on the basis of their distribution in a corpus of several Old and Middle High German texts. More specifi cally, the development and distribution of dehein / kein is investigated. While the original n-word determiner nehein (‘no’) and the second NPI (negative polarity item) determiner einig (‘any’) were virtually lost, dehein / kein changed from a weak NPI comparable to any and licensed in various non-affirmative contexts into an n-word.
One overlooked and highly polysemous English noun phrase form is the bare singular, i.e. a null determiner with a singular count noun complement. Occurring in all grammatical positions, this constituent shape is used in English for multiple functions. Examination of naturally occurring English data shows the conditions under which bare singulars are used as generics (with a meaning like bare plurals), as components of a predicate conveying a stereotypical activity (with an indefi nite meaning), and as markers of an identifiable referent (like nouns with definite articles, demonstratives, and possessive determiners). While generic and indefinite meanings are well documented for bare forms, the reading that picks out an identifi able referent is unexpected for a bare nominal. This range of meaning-based distinctions suggests additional theoretical consequences for cross-linguistic noun interpretation and DP-internal syntactic structure.
Italian allows for the use of the definite article in non-specific direct object NPs ( mettersi la giacca ‘put on a jacket’, avere il gatto ‘have a cat’). However, in French, the corresponding constructions typically take only the indefinite article ( se mettre un blouson, avoir un chat ). We present a corpus analysis and a questionnaire study which both establish a striking contrast between French and Italian on this point. We argue that the more widespread use of the Italian definite article in this non-specific function shows that it is further grammaticalized than its French counterpart. This conclusion calls for a reconsideration of the widespread view of French as the language with the more grammaticalized article system.
The paper discusses the functional load of definite DPs in early child German regarding sentence-internal (argument structure) and sentence-external relations (text coherence). The data consist of adult-child dialogues of two children in the period 1;11–2;11. It is argued that DPs exhibit functional load on both levels from the onset of production. Contradicting recent assumptions, (i) case-related distinctions are acquired prior to gender distinction, and (ii) children establish a functional distinction between pronominal DPs (continued or directly accessible reference) and noun-including DPs (disrupted or especially emphasized reference). The results allow the hypotheses that the noun-including DP is a functionally motivated extension of the pronominal DP and that properties relating the DP to other elements of sentence/text are the first to be acquired.
In Abraham (this volume), grammatical determiners of various sorts were discussed in regard of the extent to which such determiners co-define anaphors in contexts reaching beyond the single clause. Making use of its findings, the present discussion shows how the defi nite article emerged in the history of German from the determiner homonym and how various steps in their grammaticalization paths invite certain generalizations of diachronic change.
In this paper we take the existence of Bare Noun Phrases acting as subjects or displaced complements as evidence for the licensing properties of Functional Categories other that Determiner Phrase in earlier stages of Romance Languages such as Spanish and Catalan. The fact that in Spanish and Catalan subjects in passive sentences can be licensed inside the Verb Phrase also facilitates the use of BNPs in this context.
The suffixed definite article in Modern Norwegian developed from a clitic in Old Norse. Such a change creates interesting theoretical questions as to how we can account for this difference in phrase structural terms, and how such a change manifests itself. This paper discusses exactly this question and argues that this change can be viewed as grammaticalization “down the tree” from a high D head to a low n head. Furthermore, it argues that functional categories, like the definiteness category, are non-universal. That is, they are not part of Universal Grammar, but only arise when the child discovers them in the input. The paper also addresses some movement puzzles emerging in Old Norse and Modern Icelandic which have remained a theoretical puzzle. I will propose an analysis of this where I argue that we need to separate Modern Icelandic and Old Norse and thus give two separate analyses.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the English NP and its historical development into DP via the emergence of a functional D-system. This is related to the mechanism of theta-binding (Higginbotham 1985). The languages of the world could be described in terms of a D-system and morphological case. In addition, drawing on Abraham (1997) and Leiss (2000), I will examine if there is a complementary distribution between DP/TP and aspect. The correlation between DP/TP and aspect is observed in early child languages. This suggests that there might be a parallel between first language acquisition (ontogeny) and diachronic change (phylogeny) (cf. Osawa 2003a).
Three different nominal word orders in Old English through present-day English are investigated, in order to determine whether English has an ‘adjectival’ possessive similar to Modern Italian. It is argued that the orders a) demonstrative, possessive, noun and b) possessive, demonstrative, noun represent different syntactic constructions, with different paths of development. It is concluded that the a) order represents three different constructions: i) apposition, ii) a possible ‘adjectival’ possessive, no longer found in Middle English, iii) an Early Modern English focus construction using the proximal. The b) order represents a demonstrative in form, functioning only as a definiteness marker.