27.2474, Review: Morphology; Syntax: Leu (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2474. Fri Jun 03 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2474, Review: Morphology; Syntax: Leu (2015)

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Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2016 15:53:26
From: Daiho Kitaoka [dkita096 at uottawa.ca]
Subject: The Architecture of Determiners

 
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36132457


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-4253.html

AUTHOR: Thomas  Leu
TITLE: The Architecture of Determiners
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Daiho Kitaoka, University of Ottawa

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

Thomas Leu’s book ‘The Architecture of Determiners’ is a good start to tackle
questions about the properties and functions of “this, that, these, the” etc.
and other English  th- words; but the book leads us far beyond th-. Mainly,
but not exclusively, focusing on Germanic languages, in particular, Swiss
German, German, and Mainland Scandinavian, the author explores the internal
structure and derivation of determiners. He proposes that determiners, except
articles, are extended adjectival projections (xAP) including the root, an
agreement inflection, and the left-periphery. This proposal provides a unified
account for determiners and adjectives, and also illustrates that DP-internal
syntax undergoes movement and agreement akin to clausal syntax. 

This book is divided into two parts in addition to the introduction and
conclusion; D-terminers (Chapters 2-4) and Non-D-Determiners (Chapters 5-7).
The first part is devoted to various types of determiners, and the second part
deals with “ein” (= a), wh-determiners, and also discusses case and
syncretism, in particular in relation to genitives and datives.

After introducing the topic and outlining his proposal in Chapter 1, the
author begins his argument with definite demonstratives. Chapter 2 (pp. 11-39)
argues that, contrary to the traditional view that demonstratives occupy the
specifier position of DP (Giusti 1997, Roehrs 2009, among many others), the
demonstrative projects a hierarchical complex structure, consisting of a
definite marker such as d- in German demonstratives (“der”), an agreement head
(AGRca; “-er” in German; discussed in detail in Chapter 3), and an adjectival
component, that is, an unpronounced deictic element (that he describes as HERE
or THERE) that denotes a locative modification. The proposed structure and the
existence of the deictic locatives are supported by other languages; e.g.,
Scandinavian (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish), colloquial Slovenian, and Greek.
The analysis further extends to other types of adjectival components such as
“same” or “other”.

Chapter 3 ‘xAP’ (pp.40-87) extends the proposal to demonstratives into
adjectival modification in general. With plenty of empirical data on agreement
and configuration of determiner and adjectives, the author proposes the
structure and derivation of the extended adjectival projection (that he calls
xAP). Namely, the noun is base-generated within the xAP. When the xAP merges
with n, the noun is extracted from it to the specifier of nP through a
movement akin to the head-raising in relative clauses. The remnant xAP, that
is, the surface determiner and adjectives, moves to the specifier of DP, with
the result that it precedes the nP. In addition to these movements of
modifiers and the noun, xAP itself involves various movements internally, and
shows diverse surface configurations depending on various factors. For
instance, the weak/strong adjectival declension alternation in German as in
(1) is explained by differences in the xAP internal structure and derivation. 

(1) a. d-er gute Wein
         the-AGRca good wine
      b. ein gut-er Wein
          a    good-AGRca wine   
  ((3.8) in Leu 2015: 44, modified) 

Apart from previous studies, putting aside genitives and datives, the author
argues that in (1a), since the definite morpheme “d-” blocks the movement of
the adjective, “d-” itself carries an agreement marker “–er”. Meanwhile, in
(1b), the adjective moves to the specifier of xAP in order to agree with the
agreement head AGRca (Spec-Head Agreement). Again, this xAP internal syntax is
well motivated and justified by a number of phenomena involving determiners in
various languages; e.g., Scandinavian “Double Definiteness”. The chapter
builds functional projections on top of xAP up to the final-stage nominal
projection called xNP (what the author calls a Cinque stage).

Largely based on Leu (2010), Chapter 4 ‘Definite Quantifiers’ (pp. 88-111)
discusses German distributive universal quantifier “jeder” (= every) and
distributive quantificational determiner “beide” (= both). The author
demonstrates that “jeder” and “beide” are morphosyntactically adjectival and
argues that they project xAPs. The author then applies the proposed structure
of xAP discussed thus far to”jeder” and “beide”. Decomposing jeder into three
subparts, i.e., a lexical part je-, a definiteness marker d-, and an agreement
marker “–er”, he provides the step-by-step derivation of “jeder”. Based on the
scope fact of “beide”, the author introduces another xAP internal movement
that he calls Q-movement.

The second part of the book ‘Non-D-Determiners’ begins with Ein-determiners
(Chapter 5, pp. 115-137). The author proposes that an indefinite article “ein”
always involves xNP internal operator movement, where xAP that contains an
operator moves beyond the definite article (‘INV movement’ in his term). The
surface realization of the operator is various: it can be covert; it might
itself contain complex structure; it (or part of it) might affixate. The INV
movement can also be observed in English, a phenomenon called degree fronting
as in ‘too good a deal’ (p.119). The analysis with INV movement, i.e.,
fronting of xAP, is extended to negative determiner “kein” ‘no’, in which an
operator and negative morpheme “k-” are preposed beyond “ein”, and further
extended to possessive determiners (e.g, “mein” (= my)), in which a silent
possessor (an operator) and a possessor morpheme (e.g. “m-” for first person)
move beyond the indefinite article. In contrast to German, Swiss German has a
variant of possessive (called ADJ variant) that does not involve a movement of
the operator, as in (2).

(2) a. INV variant (German)
         m-ein (alt-es) Buch
         1sg-a  (old-AGRca) book
      b. ADJ variant (Swiss German)
          m-i-s (alt-ä) buäch
          1sg-STEM-AGR-ca (old-WK) book
((5.34) and (5.35), respectively, in Leu 2015: 127-128)

Chapter 6 argues the ADJ and INV variants among wh- and s-determiners (pp.
138-168) further extend to wh-determiners and s-determiners analysis of xNP
internal movement of xAP, that is, INV movement discussed in Chapter 5 (Since
the term “s-determiner” is used without defined, and moreover, used a few
times, it is not clear to me what it refers to.). First, the “was für” (= what
for) construction is discussed that has been mainly discussed in literature
for its discontinuous expressions. Since “what for” is frequently used to ask
for a kind, the author introduces SORT. This analysis is consistent with a
silent adjectival element in Chapter 2 (e.g., HERE). The behavior of “what
for” (and following null adjective SORT) also patterns with the xAP movement
such as degree fronting in Chapter 5. The operator, a wh-phrase, and “for” are
fronted beyond an indefinite article ein. The author moreover demonstrates the
duality of phrases that contain wh-determiners analogous to the INV variant
and the ADJ variant in possessives discussed in chapter 5. Whereas German has
only the former variety, both varieties are observed in Swiss German. Next, it
is shown that the analysis thus far also captures the dual configurations of
“welch” (= which) and “solch” (= such). 

Genitives and datives, put aside from the discussion on the weak/strong
adjectival declension alternation in German in Chapter 3, are the topic of the
last chapter before the  conclusion. In Chapter 7 ‘Case and Syncretism’
(pp.169-194), in order to explain puzzling behaviors of the nonfeminine
oblique ‘kase’ marker -m, the author proposes three allomorphs, that is, “-s,
-m, -r”. After isolating case marker exponents and agreement marker exponents
based on visible suffixes on the determiner, the syntactic properties of
datives and genitives are revealed, and the author conclude that oblique kase
marker exponents, “-s, -m,-r”, are in fact categorically distinct from strong
adjectival agreement as previous studies contend (e.g., Zwicky 1986). He
further claims that datives and genitives are additional projections on the
top of the nominal domain, and thus datives and genitives are disguised form
of accusatives.
  
EVALUATION

The author extensively discusses various determiner elements, and convincingly
demonstrates that the proposed xAP structure and various xNP internal
movements are well motivated and well justified. Still, however, some of the
analysis sounds more or less descriptive. For instance, the obligatory
movement of xAP quantifier “jeder” ‘every’ in Chapter 4 seems to me to be
proposed in order to derive the outcome configuration. Although the discussion
and analysis are to much extent based on German and Swiss German, empirical
data from other Germanic languages and also from non-Germanic languages
strongly support his proposal. I believe that the obligatory movement of
“jeder” would be also backed up by more empirical data. His analysis in this
book induces a number of theoretical consequences and successfully provides an
account for puzzles that have been hotly debated in literature. For instance,
his proposed analysis captures the strong/weak adjectival agreement in German,
putting aside genitives and datives. These oblique markers are also analyzed
in detail in Chapter 7, and he reveals the morphosyntactic properties and
nature of oblique markers. The proposed architecture of determiners is not
limited to account for certain languages (e.g., Germanic languages), but it
has a strong implication for the universal architecture of the nominal domain.

REFERENCES

Giusti, G. (1997). The categorial status of determiners. In L. Haegeman (Ed.),
“The New Comparative Grammar”, pp. 95–123. London: Longman.

Leu, T. (2010). The internal syntax of jeder ‘every’. “Linguistic Variation
Yearbook 9”, 153–204.

Roehrs, D. (2009). “Demonstratives and Definite Articles as Nominal
Auxiliaries”. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Zwicky, A. (1986). German adjective agreement in GPSG. “Linguistics” 24,
957–990.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Daiho Kitaoka is a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Ottawa,
Canada. His research interests include quantifier floating and the structure
of the nominal domain, mainly focusing on Japanese, English, and Algonquian
languages.





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