Advances in the Syntax of DPs - Structure, agreement, and case

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Determiners and possessives in Old English and Polish 263


a completely novel proposal, as there have been claims that ten is on its way to become
a definite article (cf. Bacz 1991). There are two more pieces of evidence suggesting that
ten might be acquiring the status of a definite article despite the lack of the obligatory
character of adjectives. The first argument comes from other Slavic languages/dialects
that developed definite articles. Bulgarian is a case in point, which additionally allows
possessive-determiner sequences. Consider example (40):


(40) moja-ta kniga
my-the book
‘my book’
(Scatton 1984: 316)


In (40) -ta is interpreted as an enclitic that is something less than a demonstrative.
Although we have no encliticization in Polish, it is tempting to assume that -ta and
ten have a similar status in both Slavic languages. It is natural to assume that they are
article-like elements rather than demonstratives. Also, note that there is no adjective
in (40) just like in Polish. It might be taken as an argument that in Slavic languages
allowing such configurations adjectives are not necessary. A similar example is Upper
Silesian, a dialect of Polish, which developed a definite article. It has been argued that
Silesian tyn, the equivalent of Polish ten ‘this’, functions as a definite article rather than
a demonstrative pronoun (cf. Czardybon 2013).
The other piece of evidence comes from Standard Polish. We have already seen
that ten in combination with a possessive pronoun appears in anaphoric contexts
typical of definite articles (cf. example (32)). Another context which might tell us
more about the status of ten is the so-called bridging, also called definite associative
anaphora. Basically, we can distinguish two types of bridging: whole-part bridging
illustrated in (41) and relational anaphora illustrated in (42):


(41) We have an old car. This is why the engine is constantly broken


(42) We went to the cinema yesterday. The film was very funny.


It has been assumed that in standard written Polish the demonstrative pronoun ten
is used in neither of these contexts. However, in spoken Polish ten is optional in rela-
tional definite associative anaphora (see Mendoza 2004):


(43) Wczoraj był-em w kin-ie. Ale (ten) film był nudny.
yesterday be.past 1 sg.m in cinema. But (this) film was boring
‘I went to the cinema yesterday. But the film was boring.’
(Czardybon 2013: 7)


The use of the demonstrative in bridging contexts is an argument for the article status
of ten. The fact that it is optional and found only in some contexts suggests that ten
is only at the beginning of its way to become a definite article. Additionally, note that

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