[Lingtyp] Optional determination?

Mon Sep 2 15:52:13 UTC 2024

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.
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?
 For instance, I am not sure that a syntactic category of determiner is relevant for Slavic languages (personal discussion with Igor Mel’cuk).

> Le 2 sept. 2024 à 17:36, Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu> a écrit :
> 
> 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:
>  
> “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?”
>  
> 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.
>  
> 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.
>  
> “Is one of these properties always obligatoriness?”
>  
> This one I really didn’t ask, because it seems obvious to be that determination is *not* 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!
>  
> Best – Juergen
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo 
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> From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Sylvain Kahane via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Date: Monday, September 2, 2024 at 10:25
> To: Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Optional determination?
> 
> Dear colleagues,
>  
> 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?
>  
> 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:
> - D1 only contains the definite article (le), the demonstrative (cet) and possessives pronouns
> - 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.
> - D3 contains a big set of (indefinite) determiners: un ‘a’, chaque ‘each’, plusieurs ’several’, etc.
>  
> 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.
>  
> 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:
> - toute ma famille ‘my whole family’
> - tous ces problèmes ‘all these problems’
> So we have: tout D1 N, but *tout N, * tout D1 D2 N, *tout D2 N, *tout D3 N.
>  
> Kahane Sylvain (2007) La distribution des articles du français <https://kahane.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/articles-2007.pdf>, in M. Charolles, N. Fournier, C. Fuchs & F. Lefeuvre (éds.), Parcours de la phrase – Mélanges offerts à Pierre Le Goffic, Ophrys, Paris, 159-174.
>  
> 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.
>  
> Best
> Sy
> 
> 
> Le 2 sept. 2024 à 15:30, Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>> a écrit :
>  
> 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.
> a.      The basic functional feature is reference fixation (to be explicated …).
> b.     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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