Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 56 | 2022
Research Article | The Syntax of Polish jeden ‘One’ as an Indefinite Determiner
The Syntax of Polish jeden ‘One’ as an Indefinite Determiner
Abstract
The current literature on Polish jeden ‘one’ focuses on its numeral status, though there is evidence that it is grammaticalizing into an indefinite determiner. This article provides a syntactic analysis of jeden in its different functions, trying to account for its grammaticalization process. Quantificational/adjectival jeden is hosted in the specifier of a DP-internal NumP projection. Indefinite specific jeden is inserted in SpecDP for referential reasons. Moreover, some occurrences of nonspecific jeden may suggest a reanalysis of SpecDP into the head D. These structural changes are in line with other processes of grammaticalization and follow the same Economy principles. This model also builds parallels with Italian and Italo-Romance indefinite determiners.
Submitted: July 30, 2021 | Accepted: Feb. 19, 2022 | Published April 21, 2022 | Language: en
Keywords Numeral ‘one’ • Indefinite determiner • Determiner phrase • Jeden • Polish
Copyright © 2022 Luca Molinari. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2022/10/004
