Multiple Determiners(57) a this is not the right answer
b *not the right answer is 42
(58) a only a fool would think that
b *I met only a fool
These observations would be consistent with the idea that these modifiers are not part
of the DP at all, but occupy separate positions in the sentence.
There are some cases of modification by an adverb, however, that do seem to
behave as though the adverb is part of the DP. This mainly takes place with
quantificational determiners, the meaning of which is modified by the adverb:
(59) a almost all men have two legs and one head
b I like almost all Renaissance paintings
It seems that such adverbs are adjoined at the DP level, rather than at the D' level as
can be seen from the fact that they precede possessives:
(60) a almost John’s whole life was spent avoiding work
b *his almost whole life ...
Thus, we propose the following analysis for these structures:(61) DP
AP DP
nearly D'
D NP
every teacher of physics
3 Multiple Determiners
In the last part of this chapter we will consider structures which appear to have more
than one determiner. In fact English seems to allow for up to three determiners:
(62) all the many disappointments
Traditionally, the determiner which appears in the middle is called a Central
Determiner, the one in front a Pre-determiner and the one following a Post-
determiner. One might think that an appropriate analysis for this kind of structure
would be as follows: