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Definition and characterization of category determiner

Prior to theory of Determiner Phrase (DP), the nominal phrase theory denoted that determiners, possessive pronouns, and possessor phrases occupied determiner position. Under this theory, the determiner position is represented as functional elements opposed to categorical elements. The nominal phrase structure arises as follows:

[NP Det [N N]]

Each determiner position is represented as follows:

Determiner in specifier NP [NP the [N’[dog]N]]

Possessive in specifier NP [NP her [N’[dog]N]}

Possessor phrase in specifier NP [NP the boy’s [N’[dog]N]

The notion of X’-theory denotes that heads project to phrases. This gives rise to the theory of DP, as argued by Abney, states that determiners proceeding nominals are heads of their own projection and occupy the head of a functional category. Motivation for this comes from parallelism between nominal and verbal constituents (Ghomeshi et al. 2009). The idea of that verbs project verbal functional structure such as inflectional phrases (IP) and complementizer phrase (CP), as explored by Chomsky, led to the study of nominal constituents. It was discovered that nouns display clausal properties and like verbs, they project functional structure (Bernstein et al. 1999). Summary: Reformulating the Determiner Phrase Analysis

Linguists, Judy Bernstein explores the influential research composed by Abney who proposed the internal structure of nominal phrases has two properties; that they have clausal properties and that nouns project functional structure. Bernstein develops these concepts as she explores arguments for Determiner Phrases, the role of D as a functional head of nominal phrases, and how D establishes references and anaphoric dependencies. She states that D must introduce the thematic roles of arguments, as D transforms a predicate NP into an argument. This supports the notion that the definite article is evidence of the function head D, which can be compared to modals in English, which are lexical projections of the functional head I. The article also explores whether all languages distinguish NP and DP, as in some languages, NP does not function as an argument. A contributing note is made to support the notion that D establishes references and anaphoric dependencies; that D carries an encoded feature, which nominal features must abide by. Proper names, which lack overt determiners, are examined as raising to the D position to accord with the referential feature of D. Finally, Bernstein presents support that DP encodes person through evidence of constructions of personal pronouns, definite articles and proper names. It is argued that the notion of person is a property of D. The article also examines first and second person pronouns of English in predicate and argument expressions, stating that D is relevant to the notion of reference as presented by the grammatical feature person. Bernstein’s article contributes to the field of linguistics as it builds off of the Abney’s (1987) theory of Determiner Phrase Bernstein, J. B. (2008)ref>