NAME: 
  Krzysztof Migdalski
TITLE OF THE PAPER: 
  A Determiner Phrase Approach to the Structure of Polish Nominals
AFFILIATION: 
  University of Tromso, Norway

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A Determiner Phrase Approach to the Structure of Polish Nominals

Abstract

The paper will address the implications of the
Determiner Phrase hypothesis for the analysis of
Polish Noun Phrases. I will follow Giusti's (1999)
bare phrase structure approach to the functional
template of nominals. I submit that the functional
structure of noun phrases is universally the same and,
unlike Willim (1998 & 2000), I propose that the DP
layer is active in Polish. Along with Giusti (1997) I
assume that among determiners only articles are heads,
so they are the only elements that may target the
D-head position. All the elements that provide
semantic referential features to the noun phrase, such
as demonstratives, prenominal possessives, personal
pronouns or genitival adjectives (e.g. 'ojcowy',
'mamina') are full phrases and therefore, they are
hosted in the Spec, DP position. I apply this
assumption to the analysis of Polish noun phrases and
the results I achieve show that all the referential
segments normally occur leftmost in the nominal
structure, preceding other modifiers of the head noun.
They also agree with the matrix noun in phi features.
Since agreement is an instance of a specifier-head
relation, they must be full XPs, occupying a specifier
position. Given that they occur leftmost in the
nominal structure, I claim that they target the
highest specifier slot, that is Spec, DP.

Since functional elements are argued to be devoid of
any semantic content (cf. Abney 1987: 64f), following
Campbell (1996) and Giusti (1999) I will  posit that
the definite article has no referential properties.
The referential interpretation that is usually
observed when a DP is headed by the definite article
results from the presence of a specificity operator
that is located in the Spec, DP position and functions
like a demonstrative. In fact, in Romanian or Italian
the definite article is sometimes inserted even though
a noun phrase has the indefinite interpretation. Even
in English the definite article may be present in
generic sentences, where the nominal clearly does not
have the referential interpretation, such as 'The
telephone was invented in 1876'. Therefore, it could
be claimed that functional heads are never inserted
for semantic reasons, but rather for grammatical ones,
for example in order to make some relevant phi
features carried covertly by the noun visible, in
particular case (cf. Giusti 1997).  Notice that across
languages articles tend to occur in complimentary
distribution with overt case marking, for instance the
only Slavic languages that exhibit no case morphology
(e.g. Bulgarian or Macedonian) are also the ones which
uniquely have the article at their disposal. It has
been often argued that the definite article originated
from demonstratives (cf. Giusti 1995, Philippi 1997),
and that the process paralleled the loss of case
morphology on the noun. Given this, it appears
legitimate to propose that the definite article and
case constitute the same D-head projection. I will
argue that the proposal proves to be valid for Polish
as well. I am going to claim that D-head node is the
locus of case in Polish and that morphological case
performs a similar grammatical function to that of the
definite article in other languages. 

References:

Abney, S. 1987. The English NP in its Sentential
Aspect. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT, Cambridge Mass. 
Campbell, R. 1996. "Specificity operators in SpecDP".
Studia Linguistica 50/2: 161-188.
Giusti, G. 1995. "A Unified Structural Representation
of (abstract) Case and Articles. Evidence from
Germanic". In: Heider, H. et al (eds.) Studies in
Comparative Germanic Syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp.
77-93.
Giusti, G. 1997. "The Categorial Status of
Determiners": In: Haegeman, L. (ed.). The New
Comparative Syntax. London: Addison Wesley Longman,
pp. 95-123.
Giusti, G. 1999. "The Functional Structure of Noun
Phrases: A Bare Phrase Structure Approach". University
of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics vol. 9, n.1-2.
Philippi, J. 1997. "The rise of the article in the
Germanic languages". In: Kemenade, A. van et al
(eds.). Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 62-93.
Willim, E. 1998. "On the DP-hypothesis in Polish, an
articleless language". In: Stalmaszczyk, P. (ed.)
Projections and Mapping: Studies in Syntax. Lublin:
FOLIUM.
Willim, E. 2000. "On the Grammar of Polish Nominals".
In: Michaels, D. et al (eds.) Step by Step. Papers in
honor of Howard Lasnik. Cambridge: The MIT Press.