An HPSG Account of Danish Determiners

A desirable property of a noun phrase analysis is a level of detail which makes it possible to account for the distribution of elements inside the phrase. In this respect Danish noun phrase structure poses a special problem because of its subtle combinations of deenite prenominal expressions. Examples of Danish nominals containing such expressions are given in (1) 1. (1) a. denne min nyvundne verden this my newly won world b. denne min begejstring this my enthusiasm c. dette det mest kritiske tidspunkt this the most critical time d. denne den sidste Rabbit-bog this the last Rabbit book e. jeres den gamle grammofon your the old record player f. deres den nnrmeste nabo their the nearest neighbour g. hende den engelske Lolitta med kkmpebrysterne her the English Lolitta with the giant breasts h. ham den forsvundne dreng him the missing boy In (1a) and (1b) the demonstrative determiner denne precedes a possessive determiner. In (1c) and (1d) the demonstrative determiners dette and denne precede the deenite article. In (1e) and (1f) the possessive determiners jeres and deres likewise precede the deenite article. Finally, in (1g) and (1h) the personal pronouns hende and ham precede the deenite article. Hansen 94] provides a description of the semantics of these constructions. In this paper a syntactic account of these expressions within the framework of HPSG is proposed. The HPSG94 noun phrase analysis Pollard & Sag 94] does not provide an account of the expressions in (1). Various alternative HPSG accounts have been put forward which 1 The examples are all corpus examples.