[Lingtyp] Optional determination?

[Christian Lehmann]

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:

 1.

    Traditionally, ‘determiner’ comprises, as core instances!,
    categories which usually differ markedly in their distribution.

 2.

    ‘Determiner’ is probably a prototypical concept.

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.

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.

 1.

    The basic functional feature is reference fixation (to be explicated
    …).

 2.

    The structural features would at least comprise the conditions

  *

    that a determiner be a grammatical formative

  *

    that it form a nominal syntagma (typically, an NP) together with a
    nominal (independently of other contexts in which it may be found
    additionally).

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.

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