The NP vs. DP debate. Why previous arguments are inconclusive and what a good argument could look like. Evidence from agreement with hybrid nouns

Abstract

The DP-hypothesis as proposed in Abney (1987) is nowadays generally taken for granted in formal syntactic work. In this paper I will show that a surprising number of arguments that have been provided in the literature are not conclusive. Many rest on purely theory-internal premises and thus lose their force given the developments within syntactic theory over the last decades. Others are largely based on presumed parallelisms between the noun phrase and the clause. In practically all cases a reasonable reanalysis within the NP-hypothesis is possible. Similarly, I will show that the few arguments in favor of the NP-hypothesis that there can be found are also inconclusive. Instead I will establish solid criteria for headedness and explore their implications for the NP vs. DP debate. I will show that the fact that the features of the head are present on the maximal projection makes testable predictions when the noun interacts with noun phrase external heads. I will first show that data from selection favor the DP-hypothesis (contrary to previous claims) since one needs to be able to syntactically select both DPs and bare nouns/NPs. Second, I will present a new argument in favor of the DP-hypothesis based on data from hybrid agreement in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian. The phenomenon crucially requires D-elements to be closer to agreement targets outside the noun phrase than the noun itself. This follows if DP dominates NP but not vice versa.

NPs, not DPs: The NP vs. DP debate in the context of dependency grammar

“…The discussion also refutes some observations that have been deemed supportive of the DP-analysis within the context of DG, mainly those produced by Hudson (1984, 90-92;1990, 268-271; and Ninio (2019). The discussion also considers a recent argument from Salzmann (2020) in the area in the context of PSG.…”

“…The following eight subsections present and refute arguments that have been produced in favor of DP, mostly within a DG context. The arguments considered are largely syntactic in nature (as opposed to semantic) and are from Hudson (1984Hudson ( , 1987Hudson ( , 1990, Ninio (2019), andSalzmann (2020). Note that alters his position from earlier, arguing that determiner and noun are in fact INTERdependentrather than the noun being dependent on the determiner outright.…”

An overview of the NP versus DP debate

“…Moreover, there are constituency arguments, which simply illustrate that N forms a constituent to the exclusion of D. Such evidence includes NP‐ellipsis/one‐substitution, as well as coordination. Finally, there are head‐movement arguments, resting on the assumption that there is an X 0 ‐position above N. Salzmann (2020) also provides other miscellaneous arguments for the DP hypothesis based on gerunds and asymmetries between languages with and without articles.…”

“…Salzmann (2020) also discusses arguments by which a language would be assigned an NP structure. The only two arguments for postulating an NP structure are noun incorporation, and possessive determiners 2…”

“…Salzmann (2020) concludes that many of the arguments that have been used to assign an NP or a DP status of the nominal domain are not conclusive as most of them solely rely on theory‐internal premises, and thus lose their power considering the recent developments in syntactic theory.…”