The definite article and its positions in the structure of the DP: evidence from Irish English and Alemannic
Keywords:
DP structure, weak definites, genericity, spoken (non-standardized) varieties of English and GermanAbstract
In this squib, the comparison of standard and non-standard varieties of German and English provides evidence for a fine-grained DP-structure regarding the position of the definite article. Besides different positions reflecting the well known distinction between generic and deictic readings, I will argue that only deictic determiners are located in D, whereas so called weak definites occupy a lower position. This lower position, labelled artP, is argued to be the highest functional projection in nominal expressions, which are non-deictic. The suggested structure is an elaboration of the structure developed by Borer (2005).
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References
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