Chapter 4 - The Determiner Phrase(63) DP
D'
D DP
all D'
D DP
the D'
D DP
many disappointments
Unfortunately however this fails to capture some rather basic facts about multiple
determiners and it also complicates the theory of heads to some extent. The first
problem is obvious: if a determiner like the can take a DP as its complement, why can
it not take any DP complement? The only ‘DP’ that can follow this determiner is one
headed by a post-determiner:
(64) a the few good ideas
b the all men
c the this mistake
In general then, the structure in (63) predicts that determiners can come in any
order within the DP and moreover there can be any number of them. Neither of these
expectations is true. The second problem lies in the fact that this suggestion forces us
to accept that determiners do not just take NP complements; they can take DP
complements as well. We will see in later chapters that it is very typical of functional
heads to take just one kind of complement, and no functional head takes a DP
complement. DP complements seem to be restricted to thematic heads and so it is
unlikely that a determiner should be able to take one.
So what is the proper analysis of multiple determiners? The easiest case to deal
with is the post-determiner. We argued in chapter 1 that these are adjectival elements
which are undefined for the F feature and hence are neither functional nor thematic
adjectives. The fact that they may be modified in the same way as thematic adjectives,
however, indicates that they head APs:
(65) a his [AP very few] good ideas
b my [AP not so many] disastrous parties
We can see from this that the traditional term ‘post-determiner’ is a rather misleading
one as they are not determiners, nor even heads but whole adjectival phrases. Where is
this AP situated? Clearly it follows the determiner and what follows the head is its
complement. But determiners do not take AP, but NP complements. It must therefore
be the case that post-determiners occupy a position within the NP complement of the