Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Chapter 4 - The Determiner Phrase

Of course, the assumption of an empty category must have other motivations than
just their necessity to make the analysis work. With the empty subject of an imperative
we pointed out that this could act as the antecedent of a reflexive pronoun and with the
trace we demonstrated how this prevents other elements from moving into a position
vacated by another moved element. Is there any independent justification for either of
the empty heads in (27) or (28)? If we consider the empty noun in (28), the only
justification this has is to provide a head for the NP. The entire semantic content and
the grammatical features of the phrase are contributed by the pronoun itself: the NP is
third person singular because the pronoun is third person singular and the NP has a
reference which is determined by the pronoun. Thus there is no independent support
for the existence of this empty noun.
Now let us consider the empty determiner in (27). At first, we might think that we
are facing the same situation here. However, this is not so. Certainly, the main
semantic content of the whole phrase is provided by the noun. But this is typical:
nouns are the main semantic element in such constructions, even if the determiner is
visible. Determiners contribute other semantic aspects, as discussed above. The phrase
Jackie is definite, as can be seen by the fact that it cannot sit in the post-verbal position
in there sentences (see chapter 1 section 3.5.2 for discussion):

(29) *there arrived Jackie

This then can be taken as a reason to think that there is a determiner accompanying
this noun which is responsible for the definiteness interpretation on the assumption
that it is determiners and not nouns which contribute this property:

(30) DP

D'

D NP

[+def] Jackie

This might be extended to other cases of nouns that appear without apparent
determiners, as with plural nouns, for example:

(31) DP

D'

D NP

[–def] visitors from Mars

Note that in this case the phrase is indefinite, as shown by the fact that it can appear in
the post-verbal position of a there sentence:

(32) there arrived visitors from Mars