Chapter 4 The Determiner Phrase
The time has come to start applying what we have introduced in the previous three
chapters to the analysis of English structures. We will start with the Determiner Phrase
as it is one which appears in many of the other phrases we shall investigate. Also there
are a number of recurrent themes which will crop up from time to time throughout this
book and the DP is a good place to introduce these.
1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP
The following all have the same distributions and hence can all be considered
determiner phrases:
(1) a that man
b he
c Henry
d men
The first consists of a determiner and a noun, which we have so far been describing as
a head followed by its complement, in the usual English pattern. The second a
pronoun, and we have claimed that pronouns are ‘intransitive’ determiners, i.e.
determiners without an NP complement. The third consists of just a proper noun and
the last just a plural count noun. These last two examples are puzzling: how can they
be considered as DPs when they contain no determiner? Perhaps these are not DPs at
all, but simply NPs. But if this is true, as all the examples in (1) have the same
distribution, they must all be considered NPs. Thus, the pronoun should be categorised
as a noun and the determiner in (1a) is not the head of the phrase, but some other
element within the NP, perhaps an adjunct or a specifier (it is on the wrong side to be
considered a complement).
This proposal might be supported by two further observations. First, note that even
when a determiner is present, the noun seems to be the most semantically salient
element, suggesting its greater importance:
(2) a these socks
b an idea
c each portrait of the Queen
(2a) refers to something of a ‘socky’ nature and (2b) to an idea. In (2c) we are talking
about instances of portraits, not instances of each. The determiners obviously do
contribute a meaning, but this seems secondary to the meaning of the noun. From this
point of view, then we might claim that the noun should be seen as the more important
syntactic element, i.e. the head.