Article Doubling

Abstract

Abstract This chapter deals with the doubling of the definite and indefinite article. After a brief introduction to the syntactic and semantic function of (in)definite articles and to the relevance of doubling for syntactic and semantic research, I review the main instantiations of each type of phenomenon. I deal with definite doubling as it is attested in North Germanic languages, in Modern Greek, and in Hebrew. Doubling occurs in these varieties predominantly when adjectival modification is involved; it is obligatory in Hebrew and in certain Northern Germanic languages, and optional in Greek, where it incurs semantic effects related to the restrictive interpretation of the adjective. In the case of Hebrew and Northern Germanic, the debate has revolved around the choice between head movement and phrasal movement within a determiner phrase (DP) analysis of nominals and around the status of the doubling elements; for Hebrew, the idea of a concord relation between the doubling elements has also been exploited. In the case of Greek, major points of controversy have been whether doubling involves an underlying predicative structure and a DP‐internal focus projection. Indefinite doubling is much less widespread cross‐linguistically. It is known to occur in some dialectal variants of Swedish and Norwegian, where it can be argued to involve a predication structure. A different instance of indefinite doubling occurs in Bavarian in the presence of quantificational elements. In this final case, doubling is argued to involve non‐identical elements. The suggestion is made that indefinite doubling as such does not exist at all.