Reference to individuals, person, and the variety of mapping parameters
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Giuseppe Longobardi
Abstract
The paper addresses two related questions: whether the principle that nominal arguments must be projections of D, apparently holding in many Romance languages, holds in English and in other languages as well; and why such a principle should exist at all. The answer empirically suggested to the first question is that the principle does hold in English, contrary to Chierchia (1998) and supporting the N-movement approach to the nominal Romance-Germanic parametrization proposed by Longobardi (1996), but that certain other languages, specifically Japanese, are likely to exhibit nominal arguments without D, as expected in Chierchia’s (1998) framework. Following the restrictive approach to phrase structure proposed by Chomsky (1995, ch 4.), the second question will be addressed by identifying D with the Person head and by arguing that the latter feature is crucial to allow type-shifting from property- to individual-denotation. Under a minimalist theory of parameter formats, it will be argued that all the three possible polymorphic realizations of the feature Person admitted by such a theory are crosslinguistically instantiated, precisely by Japanese, English, and Italian.
Abstract
The paper addresses two related questions: whether the principle that nominal arguments must be projections of D, apparently holding in many Romance languages, holds in English and in other languages as well; and why such a principle should exist at all. The answer empirically suggested to the first question is that the principle does hold in English, contrary to Chierchia (1998) and supporting the N-movement approach to the nominal Romance-Germanic parametrization proposed by Longobardi (1996), but that certain other languages, specifically Japanese, are likely to exhibit nominal arguments without D, as expected in Chierchia’s (1998) framework. Following the restrictive approach to phrase structure proposed by Chomsky (1995, ch 4.), the second question will be addressed by identifying D with the Person head and by arguing that the latter feature is crucial to allow type-shifting from property- to individual-denotation. Under a minimalist theory of parameter formats, it will be argued that all the three possible polymorphic realizations of the feature Person admitted by such a theory are crosslinguistically instantiated, precisely by Japanese, English, and Italian.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- The editors ix
- Introduction xi
- Determiners and definiteness: Functional semantics and structural differentiation 1
- Articles, definite and indefinite 27
- Typological correlations in nominal determination in Romance 45
- A stranger in the house: The French article de 65
- Determination in endocentric and exocentric languages: With evidence primarily from Danish and Italian 79
- Bare predicate nominals in Romance languages 101
- Definiteness effect and the role of the coda in existential constructions 131
- Determination of N2 modifiers in Spanish nominal syntagmatic compounds 163
- Reference to individuals, person, and the variety of mapping parameters 189
- English th - forms 213
- Stating the case for þ - root and hw - root determiners 233
- On certain differences between noun phrases and clauses 265
- Determination, nominalisation and conceptual processing 287
- The semantics and pragmatics of the possessive determiner 309
- Reference, determiners and descriptive content 337
- Index 365
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors vii
- The editors ix
- Introduction xi
- Determiners and definiteness: Functional semantics and structural differentiation 1
- Articles, definite and indefinite 27
- Typological correlations in nominal determination in Romance 45
- A stranger in the house: The French article de 65
- Determination in endocentric and exocentric languages: With evidence primarily from Danish and Italian 79
- Bare predicate nominals in Romance languages 101
- Definiteness effect and the role of the coda in existential constructions 131
- Determination of N2 modifiers in Spanish nominal syntagmatic compounds 163
- Reference to individuals, person, and the variety of mapping parameters 189
- English th - forms 213
- Stating the case for þ - root and hw - root determiners 233
- On certain differences between noun phrases and clauses 265
- Determination, nominalisation and conceptual processing 287
- The semantics and pragmatics of the possessive determiner 309
- Reference, determiners and descriptive content 337
- Index 365
