English th- forms

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.

Published online: 09 July 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.99.12ber