<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Yes, there are many languages where a bare noun can be subject of a verb. In other words, the question I ask is: Can you in such a language characterize a distributional class of elements you want to call determiners? On what basis is this category of determiner defined? I mean purely syntactic/distributional criteria, not semantic ones.<div>I suppose that one possible criterion will be word order: you can call determiner an element that can never be preceded (or followed) by another element in the NP. Not sure that such a distributional class exists in every language. Not sure that, even if this class exists, it correspond to the comparative concept of determiner. What other criteria do you use to define determiners in the language you describe?</div><div> For instance, I am not sure that a syntactic category of determiner is relevant for Slavic languages (personal discussion with Igor Mel’cuk).<br id="lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage"><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>Le 2 sept. 2024 à 17:36, Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77@buffalo.edu> a écrit :</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><meta charset="UTF-8"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">Many thanks, Sy! – Now, in the interest of clarity, the questions you ask overlap with mine, but I’m not entirely sure that they are quite the same questions. In detail:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">“Does it make sense in every language to consider a syntactic category of determiner, distinct from the category of adjective due to specific syntactic properties?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">Well, the question I asked was whether there are empirical grounds for saying that even in languages in which determiners are optional, there may still be a syntactic process of determination. By which I meant that there is a distributional difference between (some) determined and non-determined phrases.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">Is that the same question as whether determiners form a syntactic category in all languages? Well, if we understand “form a syntactic category” to mean that there is a distributional difference between determiners and other nominal dependents, then yes, those questions seem to be extensionally synonymous.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">“Is one of these properties always obligatoriness?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">This one I really didn’t ask, because it seems obvious to be that determination is *<b>not</b>* obligatory in a great many languages (including most Slavic languages, most Indic languages, and many languages of East Asia). And my primary interest is specifically in such languages in which determination is not obligatory!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";">Best – Juergen<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div><div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;">Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>University at Buffalo <br><br>Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>Email: </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" title="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(0, 120, 212);">jb77@buffalo.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br>Web: </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" title="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(5, 99, 193);">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"> <br><br></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh) </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica;"><br><br>There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In <br>(Leonard Cohen) </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">-- <o:p></o:p></span></div></div></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span lang="DE" style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span lang="DE" style="font-family: "CMU Serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div id="mail-editor-reference-message-container"><div><div><div style="border-width: 1pt medium medium; border-style: solid none none; border-color: rgb(181, 196, 223) currentcolor currentcolor; border-image: none; padding: 3pt 0in 0in;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><b><span style="">From:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><span style="">Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> on behalf of Sylvain Kahane via Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br><b>Date:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Monday, September 2, 2024 at 10:25<br><b>To:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br><b>Subject:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Re: [Lingtyp] Optional determination?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">Dear colleagues,<o:p></o:p></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">As always, we can consider the term “determiner” as denoting a comparative concept or language-specific categories. I think that the initial question of Juergen concerned the language-specific categories and the criteria associated to their definitions. If I reformulate Juergen’s question, I will say: Does it make sense in every language to consider a syntactic category of determiner, distinct from the category of adjective due to specific syntactic properties. Is one of these properties always obligatoriness? What could be the other properties characterizing determiners as a syntactic category?<o:p></o:p></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">Let me give the example of French, which is not as simple as people generally think (including linguists of French). French has three paradigms that I will call D1, D2, and D3, which can be distinguished from adjectives by a property of obligatoriness:<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">- D1 only contains the definite article (le), the demonstrative (cet) and possessives pronouns<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">- D2 contains the numerals after 2 and about three other elements: quelques ’some, a few, few’, différents ‘different’, divers ‘various’. Items in D2 are always plural.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">- D3 contains a big set of (indefinite) determiners: un ‘a’, chaque ‘each’, plusieurs ’several’, etc.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">A bare noun is impossible in the subject position. You need an element of one the three categories: D1 N, D2 N, D3 N, but D1 D2 N is also possible! (quelques amis ‘a few friends’, ces quelques amis ’these few friends’). All other combinations are impossible: *N, *D1 D3 N, *D2 D1 N, etc. So it makes sense to gather all elements of D1, D2 and D3, in common distributional class of elements which are obligatory in the NP/DP. But we don’t have the property of uniqueness of the determiner.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">The French determiners have another common property: They precedes all the adjectives, except one: tout ‘all’, which must combine with an element of D1, excluding D2:<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">- toute ma famille ‘my whole family’<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">- tous ces problèmes ‘all these problems’<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">So we have: tout D1 N, but *tout N, * tout D1 D2 N, *tout D2 N, *tout D3 N.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">Kahane Sylvain (2007) </span><a href="https://kahane.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/articles-2007.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">La distribution des articles du français</a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">, in M. Charolles, N. Fournier, C. Fuchs & F. Lefeuvre (éds.), </span><em><span style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">Parcours de la phrase – Mélanges offerts à Pierre Le Goffic</span></em><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: -webkit-standard, serif;">, Ophrys, Paris, 159-174.</span><o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">I would be interested in examples in other languages of the characterization of a language-specific category of determiners based only on syntactic/distributional criteria and to have an idea of the criteria that could appear to characterize determiners.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">Best<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">Sy<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><br><br><o:p></o:p></div><blockquote style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt;"><div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">Le 2 sept. 2024 à 15:30, Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> a écrit :<o:p></o:p></div></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div><div><div><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">Similarly as ‘adverb’, ‘determiner’ may be an interlingual category which, by its traditional use(s), is internally heterogeneous, so if you tried to define it, you would have a janus-faced problem:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 1in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span>1.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span>Traditionally, ‘determiner’ comprises, as core instances!, categories which usually differ markedly in their distribution.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 1in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span>2.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span>‘Determiner’ is probably a prototypical concept.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">Ad 1: As far as I know, demonstratives and articles are the clearest cases of determiners. In several languages which have both, they differ in their distribution in that articles only occur as subconstituents of NPs while demonstratives (like other pronouns) can constitute an NP.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">Ad 2: If ‘determiner’ is a typical interlingual category, it is a ‘hybrid’ category, i.e., it is constituted both by functional and by structural features.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 1in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span>a.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span>The basic functional feature is reference fixation (to be explicated …).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 1in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span>b.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span>The structural features would at least comprise the conditions<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 1in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span>that a determiner be a grammatical formative<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 1in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Symbol;"><span>·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></span>that it form a nominal syntagma (typically, an NP) together with a nominal (independently of other contexts in which it may be found additionally).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in;">If this were applied to a language in order to identify its determiners, then in many a language possessive pronouns would come under the category. If one wanted to exclude them, one could specify the functional criterion. Then articles would be prototypical determiners, possessive pronouns might be peripheral to the category.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="western" style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">_______________________________________________<br>Lingtyp mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br><a href="https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><o:p></o:p></div></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>