Uniform (In)Definiteness Spreading in Magahi

Determiner spreading (sometimes called poly-(in)definiteness) is a phenomenon that involves the realization of multiple determiners in noun phrases with modification. For example, in a language with determiner spreading a noun phrase like “the big book” can be realized as the equivalent of the big the book. Determiner spreading does not have the same exact characteristics in all languages, and this talk will focus on “Greek-type” determiner spreading, which I take to be determiner spreading that is recursive, has a restrictive interpretation, and is only possible with predicative adjectives (Alexiadou 2014; Kouneli 2021). There is less discussion in the literature about the spreading of indefinite articles, but it is reported to occur in northern Scandinavian dialects (Delsing 1993). However, despite the superficial similarities between definiteness and indefiniteness spreading, Alexiadou (2006, 2014) has argued that they have different syntactic structures, with the “extra” determiners in indefinite determiner spreading spelling out a linker in a predicative small clause (cf. Den Dikken 2006), while the “extra” determiners in definite determiner serve to introduce reduced relative clauses in the spirit of Kayne (1994).

The empirical focus of this talk is modification in noun phrases in Magahi, an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. There is a suffix -kaa (masc.) / -kii (fem.) that occurs on adjectives in Magahi, which I will argue is a determiner involved in a Greek-type determiner spreading pattern. In particular, I argue that: i. Greek-type determiner spreading is derived from a reduced relative clause structure (as proposed by Alexiadou & Wilder 1998); ii. indefinite and definite determiner spreading can have the same syntactic structure; iii. Determiner spreading is part of a wider phenomenon that involves “spreading” of functional heads high in the noun phrase.