[Lingtyp] Optional determination?

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear Jürgen,

before considering your specific question, let me ask about its 
presupposition: If a process is optional, it seems doubtful to you 
whether it can be considered a grammatical process.

Now if something is (structurally) obligatory, it is grammatical. The 
inverse does not hold, because although obligatoriness has been regarded 
by some as the most important feature of grammaticalization, it is not 
the only one. Moreover, there are degrees of optionality/obligatoriness 
(s. Lehmann, /Thoughts on grammaticalization/).

Thus, the grammatical rules concerning determination may say that 
determiners are optional in certain contexts, but obligatory in others; 
that if there is a determiner, it has to go in such and such a 
syntagmatic position; that determiners are chosen from a small closed 
paradigm and cannot be combined syntagmatically; etc. Compare, e.g., 
adjectives, for which there are such rules, too; but they are less strict.

During the documented history from Vulgar Latin to the modern Romance 
languages, articles have been developping from absent to increasingly 
obligatory. At which point has determination by articles become "a 
grammatical process"?

Best, Christian
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