This paper develops the idea that English words like the, they, this, and existentialthere share an initial th- morpheme, which is identified as a 3rd person marker unspecified for number and gender. Also developed is the proposal that person is a property of D (head of the functional projection “Determiner Phrase”). Not adopted is the idea that definiteness or deixis is inherently encoded in D, although the proposal is compatible with an approach that takes these features to be derivationally associated with D. The proposed analysis therefore departs from that of Lyons (1999), who argues that the features person and definiteness are conflated and simultaneously associated with D.
2008. The Expression of Third Person in Older and Contemporary Varieties of English. English Studies 89:5 ► pp. 571 ff.
Bernstein, Judy B.
2008. Reformulating the Determiner Phrase Analysis. Language and Linguistics Compass 2:6 ► pp. 1246 ff.
Colomina, María Pilar
2020. A distinctness approach to clitic combinations in Romance. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 13:2 ► pp. 277 ff.
Fritzsche, Rosa
2023. Ordering discontinuous $$\varvec{\varphi }$$-feature agree: verbal -s in North Eastern English. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 26:1
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