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Abstract

The , adopted by many syntactic analyses, claims that nominal arguments are introduced by a determiner (D), which may be covert or overt. While overt D is obligatory in Modern French (consistent with the argument DP hypothesis), it was not obligatory in earlier stages of French. We explore the factors that contributed to this change – including , and  – focusing on a shift that occurred in the D-paradigm in two Anglo-Norman texts of the 12th century. Quantitative analysis () yields two major findings. First, the effect of remains constant: subject position favours overt D, but object position inhibits it. Second, there is a change in the effect of : count nouns increasingly favour overt D, but non-count (mass and abstract) nouns increasingly inhibit it. More generally, the gradual disappearance of bare Ns in French reflects the emergence of paradigmatically conditioned D.

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2018-07-13
2020-01-23

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The variable use of determiners in Old French and the argument DP hypothesis
Linguistic Variation 18, 23 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00003.duf
/content/journals/10.1075/lv.00003.duf
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Anglo-Norman , argument DP hypothesis , bare nouns , corpus analysis , definiteness , language change , language variation , morphology , Old French and syntax

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