On noun phrase architecture, referentiality, and article systems

Abstract

Some languages have articles, others have not. This article argues that semantically equivalent noun phrases have the same underlying phrase structure across languages, no matter whether articles exist or not. The core idea is that functional categories are abstract syntactic heads correlated with specific referential categories. Presence vs. absence of a functional category determines whether or not its particular referential properties are found on the noun phrase. The functional heads are found universally and are a part of Universal Grammar, but since they are abstract, they must be ‘identified’: Identification is accomplished when an element with the relevant morphological features is merged within the functional head projection. When the numeration contains several candidates for identification, the one with the highest number of relevant morphological features (with particular qualifications) is chosen. Crucially, articles are on principle available as potential identifiers, and languages that have articles must therefore use them if they are more appropriate identifiers than any of the elements in a given numeration. Having no semantic properties of their own, articles become specialized identifiers for particular functional categories. This theory, Identification Theory, captures important traits of the article systems of various languages, notably those of English, Finnish, French, Icelandic, Mainland Scandinavian, and Northern and Northeastern Swedish ‘O¨sterbotten’ dialects.

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