3.

Determiners and other functional categories

DONKA FARKAS, ION GIURGEA

0. Introduction. Nominal functional categories (Ion Giurgea)

1. The syntax of nominal functional categories (Ion Giurgea)
1.1. Functional categories as heads of maximal nominal projections. The DP theory
1.2. Distributional classes
1.3. Noun ellipsis, pro-N and pro-DP
1.3.1. Nominal functional elements that never allowing N-ellipsis
1.3.2. Nominal functional elements that allow N-ellipsis
1.3.3. Pro-DPs (pronouns)
1.3.3.1. Indefinite pronouns
1.3.3.2. Personal pronouns
1.3.3.3. The ‘genitival and ordinal article’ al
1.3.4. Note on nominal ellipsis in bare nouns
1.4. Modifiers and complements licensed by nominal functional categories, phrasal
NFCs and the issue of partitive PPs
1.4.1. Approximation modifiers and other modifiers licensed by quantifiers
1.4.2. Phrasal cardinals
1.4.3. Scalar quantitatives
1.4.4. Partitive PPs
1.4.5. Complements of equality and difference
1.5. Quantitative expressions
1.5.1. Adjectival quantitatives
1.5.2. Cardinals
1.5.3. Nominalized cardinals, quantity nouns and other functional nouns
1.5.4. Quantity expressions that always occupy the D layer
1.5.5. Quantity expressions in predicative position
1.5.6. Note on the word un ‘a, one’
1.6. Common properties of quantitatives and some indefinite determiners.
1.7. The alternative and the identity determiner
1.7.1. Alternative determiners
1.7.2. The identity determiner
1.7.3. Complements of equality and difference
1.8. Definite determiners
1.8.1. The definite article
1.8.2. Demonstratives
1.8.3. Definite phrases in SpecDP
1.9. Pre-determiners
1.10. The system of compound determiners, pro-DPs and pro-locative-adverbials
2. The semantics of determiners (Donka Farkas)

1
0. Introduction. Nominal functional categories

This chapter is dedicated to functional words in the nominal phrase, which can be grouped
into the following distributional classes:
(i) Determiners (Ds)
(ii) Post-D functional items which may also occupy the D position
(iii) Functional items which are always post-D
(iv) Pre-D functional items

Determiners are the words with the distribution of the article1 and of the distributive
universal fiecare ‘every, each’, as shown in (1).

(1) a. o (*această/orice/fiecare/unele/nişte/câteva) carte(*a)

a this any each some s’m a few book(-the)
b. această (*o/fiecare/orice/nişte/câteva) carte(*a)
c. fiecare (*o/această/orice/nişte/câteva) carte(*a)
d. orice (*o/această/unele/nişte/câteva) carte(*a)
e. unele (*o/aceste/orice/nişte/câteva) cărŃi(*le)
some a these any s’m a few books(-the)
f. nişte (*o/aceste/orice/câteva) cărŃi(*le)
g. câteva (*o/aceste/orice/unele/nişte) cărŃi(*le)
h. (*o/această/orice/unele/nişte/câteva) cartea/cărŃile

These elements always precede, never follow modifiers of the noun:

(2) (*frumoasă) o (frumoasă) carte (frumoasă)

beautiful a beautiful book beautiful

A number of functional words which can co-occur with determiners (following them) –
cardinals, altul ‘other’, quantitatives such as mult, mulŃi ‘much, many’, puŃin, puŃini ‘few’ –
may also appear in the first position of the nominal projection without a determiner (compare
(3)a,c,e to (3)b,d,f); in this case they may be assumed to play the role of the determiner,
mapping the property denoted by the NP into a referential or quantificational expression. We
may thus assume that in examples such as (3)b,d,f), these items occupy the D position:

(3) a. Cei şapte prieteni s-au întâlnit la barul ‘Victoria’.

the seven friends REFL-have met at pub-the Victoria
’The seven friends met at the Victoria bar.’
b. Şapte prieteni s-au întâlnit la barul ‘Victoria’.
seven friends REFL-have met at pub-the Victoria
’Seven friends have met at the Victoria bar.’
c. Aceşti mulŃi ani i-am petrecut în Grecia.
these many years themCL.ACC -have.1SG spent in Greece
‘These many years I spent in Greece.’
d. MulŃi ani i-am petrecut în Grecia.
Many years themCL.ACC-have.1SG spent in Greece
‘Many years I spent in Greece.’
e. Aceste alte întrebări le lăsăm pentru mai târziu.
these other questions them.CL.ACC let.1PL for more late
‘We let these other questions for later.’
1
For Romanian, the indefinite article gives better results, since the definite article can combine with a
demonstrative.

2
 f. Alte întrebări le lăsăm pentru mai târziu.
other questions them CL.ACC let.1PL for more late
‘We let other questions for later.’

Besides this distributional fact, determiners share with the other functional categories (which
we labeled pre-D and post-D) a number of other properties:
(i) They are grammatical, or functional words. This is to say that unlike major lexical
categories (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and prepositions), they form closed classes, with
a fixed and quite abstract, logic interpretation (cardinals are cardinality predicates; pre-Ds
express universal quantification; the alternative expresses the negation of an identity relation).
Such words are, in the model of grammar used in this book, analyzed as functional categories.
Functional categories generally require the support of one and only one lexical category. For
the functional categories discussed here, this category is the Noun, hence the label nominal
functional categories used here. For individual items belonging to these categories, we will
use the label nominal functional elements.
(ii) They allow the ellipsis of the noun. There are but a few exceptions to this
generalization, which will be discussed in 1.3 below (see especially 1.3.1)(nişte ‘s’m’, alde,
ce ‘what’, orice ‘whatever’). The definite article (-L/cel) and the indefinite article un are not
an exception to this rule, but they simply have special forms when combined with empty
nouns: cel and unul (see (4)e). Some researchers also analyze personal pronouns as formed by
a definite article and an elliptical/empty noun. See section 1.3 for arguments in favor and
against such an analysis.
The modifiers of the noun don’t allow N-ellipsis.
Sometimes determiners have special forms when combining with an empty noun
((4)d-e). Sometimes instead of ellipsis the nominal content is incorporated into the
determiner, which thus functions as a pro-DP (pronoun) ((5)) (nimeni ‘nobody’ contains,
beside the negative quantifier expressed by niciun, the descriptive content /+person/) (see 1.3
for a detailed discussion of this issue):

(4) a. Fiecare a venit la conferinŃă.

each has come to conference
‘Everyone came to the conference’
b. (Cei) trei au venit la conferinŃă.
the three have come to conference
’(The) three have come to the conference.’
c. ToŃi au venit la conferinŃă.
all.MPL have come to conference
’All came to the conference.’
d. Niciunul nu a venit la conferinŃă.
none not has come to conference
‘No one came to the conference’
e. Doar unul a venit.
only one has come
‘Only one came’
(5) Nimeni nu a venit.
nobody not has come
‘Nobody came.’

(iii) They appear before other modifiers of the noun, and (with the exception of long
demonstratives acesta, acela, the definite altenative celălalt ‘the other’, ordinals and the
universal quantifiers toŃi, tot ‘all’, amândoi ‘both’) before the noun itself:

3
(6) a. (*frumoase) aceste (frumoase) lalele (frumoase)
beautiful these beautiful tulips beautiful
b. (*frumoase) zece (frumoase) lalele (frumoase)
beautiful ten beautiful tulips beautiful

In traditional grammar, the various nominal functional categories enumerated above were
split into several classes: articles, pronominal adjectives, pronouns, numerals; only the article
was considered a functional element, the others were considered modifiers of the noun, being
assimilated to adjectives, and pronouns when they stand alone (without an N). However, the
distributional facts concerning determiners and the properties (i)-(iii) neatly indicate that
nominal functional categories form a natural class, very different from adjectives.
The adjectival status of nominal functional categories is supported by one property
that they share with adjectives: they agree in gender and number with the head noun.
However, determiners are different from adjectives with regard to another feature, Case: the
feature of case is realized on the determiner, and transmitted to the noun and its dependents by
an agreement relation. This is indicated by two facts: (i) only determiners are unambiguously
marked for case (putting aside the vocative, which anyway has a special status) (ex.(7)), and
(ii) when no determiner is present, the noun cannot adopt the oblique form, but an
independent case-marker - a ‘dummy’ preposition - must be inserted (ex. (8)).

(7) singular plural

N.A. o/această/altă /fiecare fată nişte(unele)/aceste/alte fete
a this other each girl s’m some these other girls
G.D. unei/acestei/altei/fiecărei fete unor/acestor/altor fete

N.A. un/acest/alt /fiecare băiat nişte(unii)/aceşti/alŃi băieŃi

a this other each boy s’m some these other boys
G.D. unui/acestui/altui/fiecărui băiat unor/acestor/altor băieŃi

(8) a. cumpărarea drogurilor /unor droguri

buying-the drugs-the.GEN/ some-PL.GEN drugs
b. cumpărarea de droguri
buying-the of drugs

More precisely, Case is realized on the D position and on pre-Ds. When several nominal
functional elements co-occur, only the first one bears the unambiguous case marking (see (9)a
compared to (9)b), unless the first is a pre-D universal and the second a (definite) determiner
(see (9)c); in addition, when the first determiner is a post-D item functioning as a D, the
second one may receive the case inflection (see (9)d)):

(9) a. acestor alte probleme

these.PL.OBL other.PL problems
b. altor probleme
other.PL.OBL problems
c. tuturor acestor probleme
all.PL.OBL these.PL.OBL problems
d. atâtor altor /alte probleme
so-many.PL.OBL other.PL.OBL/other.PL problems

For more on this, see chapter 1.

4
1. The syntax of nominal functional categories (Ion Giurgea)

1.1. The DP theory.

Functional categories which are specified for a given lexical category (in our case, N) are
analyzed in the current generative framework as heads (X0-elements) taking the lexical
category/projection (in this case, the NP) as a complement. Recall that besides belonging to a
closed class, the two following properties characterize functional heads: (i) they always
require a complement marked with a particular categorial feature (in this case, (N)), and (ii)
they are simple (don’t have additional modifiers or complements). Most nominal functional
elements comply with these criteria (for exceptions, see above, section 0, the discussion under
property (iii)). However, there are also cases in which a (quasi-)grammaticalized item projects
a phrase of its own, like lexical items (see § 1.4. for discussion): the quantitative expressions
mulŃi ’many’, puŃini ’few’, mult ’much’, puŃin ’little’ have a degree projection like regular
adjectives (mai mulŃi ‘more’, foarte mulŃi ‘very many’, atât de mulŃi ‘so many’). Cardinals
may combine with prepositions (sub zece persoane lit. ‘under ten persons’, meaning ‘less than
ten persons’) and enter certain degree constructions (mai mult de zece persoane ‘more than
ten persons’)(see 1.4.2). In such case, we can assume that the functional element occupies a
Specifier position.
The traditional analysis and the generative view proposed here are comparable in the
case of articles, insofar as such elements were seen as dependent, grammatical words (the
counterpart of auxiliaries in the verb phrase), encoding the +/-definite feature of the noun
phrase. The generative approach is nevertheless different insofar as articles are not treated as
features of the lexical element, but rather as functional heads projecting their own phrase:

(10) un copil ‘ a child’

-traditional: - current framework:

N DP

D´

D0 NP

un (indef) copil un copil

On the other hand, elements such as acest ‘this’, fiecare ‘every,each’, atât ‘so much’, toŃi ‘all’
were traditionally labelled ‘pronominal adjectives’ and considered to be nominal modifiers
(‘attributes’). We have already seen that there are strong syntactic as well as semantic
arguments to include them into the class of nominal functional categories (NFCs), together
with articles and pronouns and apart from nominal modifiers (attributes). Below we present
other arguments for distinguishing determiners from modifiers:
▪ In certain syntactic positions, such as the preverbal subject position, determiners
cannot be omitted. Modifiers can always be omitted:

(11) * (Doi/nişte/câŃiva) copii au venit.

two s’m a few children have come

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In other positions determiner-less plural or mass nouns are allowed, while determiner-less
(‘bare’) singulars are either forbidden (the postverbal subject) or restricted to some types of
predicates (the object position):

(12) a. Am văzut păsări

have.1SG seen birds
b. Am văzut *(o) pasăre
have.1SG seen a bird
c. Zboară păsări/*pasăre
fly birds /bird

For a unitary treatment of cases of type (12), we could either say that a null plural-mass
determiner is present, or that these contexts require the presence of an intermediate projection
between N and D, the number phrase (NumP), which is realized either as abstract
+plural/+mass or as the indefinite article un/o. We will not decide here between these
alternatives.
It can be shown that the difference between the levels projected in the nominal
structure correlate with semantic differences. This can easily be shown by comparing
adnominal DPs with adnominal NPs introduced by the dummy preposition de (which
arguably functions as a case-marker). In (13)a, the genitive-marked DP refers to an individual
(a particular entity), whereas in (13)b no particular entity is involved, rather the N preserves
its basic property-reading:

(13) a. haina soldatului

coat-the soldier-the.GEN
‘the soldier’s coat’
b. haina de soldat
coat-the de soldier
‘the soldier coat’

It is worth noting that in order to express the difference expressed in (13)a-b, the languages with no
obligatory D-level (no articles) use a derived adjective for the property reading (the case b):

(14) a. militis vestis Latin

soldier.GEN clothing
‘the/a soldier’s clothing’
b. militaris vestis
soldier.ADJ clothing
‘soldier clothing’

Bare NPs always have property denotation. Cases as (15)a, in which prepositions combine
with bare nouns with a referential, definite interpretation are only an apparent exception: in
the presence of any expansion of the N, the definite article is required ((15)b). This leads us to
assume that in the context where a preposition introduces a DP which immediately dominates
the definite article and N (no intermediate level is present), the definite article takes a
particular morphological realization, either as a null morpheme or as conflated with the
preposition. This proposal is based not only on the interpretation, but also on the fact that an
overt definite article is excluded after prepositions when no ‘expansion’ of the N is present
((15)c)2 (see chapter 8).

2
Not all prepositions behave like that. The exceptions are cu ‘with’ and the prepositions taking an
oblique case (genitive or dative).

6
(15) a. Pisica s-a ascuns sub scaun.
cat-the REFL-has hidden under chair
‘The cat hid under the chair.’
b. Pisica s-a ascuns sub scaun*(ul) rotund3
cat-the REFL-has hidden under chair-the round
‘The cat hid under the round chair.’
c. *Pisica s-a ascuns sub scaunul.
cat-the REFL-has hidden under chair-the

We conclude that determiners, unlike modifiers and complements of N, are sensitive to the
syntactic environment of the nominal phrase. This indicates that determiners are heads, being
syntactically selected or licensed from outside the nominal phrase.
If we accept that elements outside the nominal phrase syntactically select for the
determiner, we can understand why determiners are always present in constructions with N-
ellipsis (for possible counterexamples, see 1.3.4 below, where we argue that a null D or Num
is present in (most of) these cases).

 Unlike noun complements and modifiers, NFCs are not sensitive to the semantic
content of the noun – the only feature they are sensitive to is count/mass, which is a
grammaticalized feature. This generalization is expected given the characterization of NFCs
as grammatical words which we gave in the introduction, under (iii):

(16) a. comportamentul /*muntele /*părul faŃă de el

behaviour-the mountain-the hair-the towards him
b. *comportamentul/ muntele /??părul calcaros
behaviour-the mountain-the hair-the calcareous
c. *comportamentul /??muntele /părul blond
behaviour-the mountain-the hair-the blond
d. acest comportament /munte /păr
this behaviour mountain hair

 When several nominal functional elements (NFEs) co-occur, their order is fixed. The
constraints are stricter than those applying for adjectival adjuncts. This fact can be captured
by analyzing each of these functional elements as introducing a functional layer (either as the
head or as the specifier of a fuctional projection, see below) and considering that the order of
these functional projections is fixed (see (17)c and section 1.2 below). The rigid order would
be harder to represent in an analysis where determiners are modifiers:

(17) a. aceste alte trei cărŃi /(?)*aceste trei alte cărŃi

these others three books these three others books
b. alte câteva zile / *câteva alte zile
others a few days a few others days
c. [D [Alt [Card [NP]]]]

There are NFEs which select for a particular NFE: the universals toŃi ‘all’, amândoi ‘both’
select definite DPs (i.e. DPs introduced by the definite article, demonstratives, the definite
alternative; see section 1.9 for details).

3
In this type of examples – which contain a modifier or a complement of the N – the article is obligatory
if the phrase is interpreted as definite (‘the round chair’); bare nouns are of course possible (see chapter 2) – e.g.
sub scaune vechi ‘under old chairs’ – but are interpreted as indefinites.

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 Note however that unlike the presence of at least one FE, which is obligatory in some
syntactic environments (see example (11) above), the co-occurrence of several NFEs is
always optional. Therefore, if we adopt the hypothesis that each NFE introduces a functional
projection, we should consider that the functional projections below D and above D are
optional – we may call them minor functional projections.

 The fact that NFEs allow N-ellipsis can easily be formulated in the analysis of NFEs
as heads: the identification of the elided category is ensured by their selectional properties.

 The hypothesis that NFEs are functional heads or specifiers of dedicated functional
projections also accounts for their placement before the noun, contrasting with that of
complements and most adjectives: Romanian, as the other Romance languages, is a head-
initial language. The order of elements inside the nominal projections thus obeys the general
pattern of the language.

We assume that a functional layer may be projected either by filling its head, or by
filling its specifier. This is needed because phrasal elements (see 1.4) too may qualify as
functional elements under the criteria presented above, although they cannot be assumed to
head a functional projection, since they are phrases, not heads:

(18) (Mai mult de zece) copii sunt în odaie.

more much than ten children are in room
‘More than ten children are in the room.’

1.2. The distributional classes

We have said that several NFEs may co-occur with one another. We have proposed that in
this case one of them occupies the D position (normally the first; the only exceptions are pre-
D universals, see below), and the others realize minor functional nominal projections.
Let us now classify NFEs according to the co-occurrence with other determiners and
the word order which obtains in such cases, establishing thus the list of minor functional
projections. We will limit ourselves here to phrases with an overt noun. The functional
elements which appear in phrases without an overt noun will be analyzed in the next section.
I. Determiners (Ds): they are never preceded by another NFI, except for the pre-Ds
(see II). They introduce a nominal projection in what we identified as DP contexts (see 1.1.):
the definite article (with the variants -L and cel, see 1.8), , the indefinites un ‘a(n), one’, nişte
‘some, s’m’, unii ‘(partitive) some’, vreun ‘a, any, some’, the negative niciun(ul) ‘no, no one’,
the interrogative ce ‘what, which’ and its compound orice ‘any’, the interrogative-relative
care ‘which’ and its compounds fiecare ‘every, each’, oricare ‘any’, the quantitatives cât, câŃi
‘how much, how many’, ceva ‘some’, oricât, oricâŃi ‘however much/many’, atât, atâŃi
‘as/so/that much/many’, niŃel ‘a little, a bit’ (colloquial), probably also the quotative cutare
‘so and so’. The identity determiner (acelaşi ‘the same’) is usually not preceded by a
determiner, but may exceptionally combine with the indefinite article, so it is perhaps better
included under III (possibly, only for some speakers it is of type I; see section 1.7). Short
demonstratives (acest ‘this one’, acel ‘that one’) may also be included here, if we consider
them to be different items from long demonstratives (acela/ăla), which occur immediately
after the definite article.
Ambii ‘both’ too would belong here, unless we consider that it contains the definite
article. It has indeed the morphology of an adjective suffixed with the definite article, but
since a non-definite form *amb does not exist, and it behaves as a determiner not only

8
semantically, but also by allowing N-ellipsis and by always occupying the first position in the
DP, we will simply treat it as a D. It is worth noticing that unlike its pre-D synonym amândoi,
it cannot appear in the so-called floating quantifier construction (see 1.9):

(19) Casele au căzut amândouă (??ambele)

houses-the have fallen both both

II. Pre-Ds: the universals toŃi ‘all’, tot ‘all, the whole’, amândoi ‘both’, all combining
with a definite D:

(20) a. toate case*(le)

all houses-the
b. amândoi copii*(i)
both children-the

They will be treated in detail in section 1.9.

III. NFEs which may be preceded by Ds, but may also appear as the first NFE of the
phrase, introducing a nominal projection in a DP-context, thus functioning as Ds:
(i) immediately post-D : (long) demonstratives. Demonstratives appear either in D or
immediately following N+definite article. They show a short form when they are in D and
take an (overt) noun (see (21)a), and a ‘long’ or extended form in the pronominal use ((21)c)
and in post-nominal (post-D) position ((21)b). This form is built by adding an -a to the short
form. For an analysis of this behaviour see 1.8 below.

(21) a. aceste case

these houses
b. casele acestea
houses-the these-a
c. Nu-mi plac acestea
not-me.CL.DAT like.3PL these

We also encounter some compounds formed with the definite article or a demonstrative + the
alternative determiner: celălalt ‘the other’ (with the sub-standard variant ălalalt), ăstălalt ‘this
other’ (colloquial):

(22) a. cealaltă maşină

the-other car
b. maşina cealaltă
car-the the-other

Since the order of the morphemes obeys the general pattern for alternatives (which, if a D or
demonstrative is present, follow it, see (26)-(27) below) and both parts of the compound re
inflected (e.g. feminine cealaltă, plural ceilalŃi, celelalte, oblique sg. celuilalt, celeilalte, pl.
ceilalŃi, celeilalte), we may consider that these compounds are formed in or after syntax, with
cel and the demonstrative occupying the D or the post-D demonstrative position (in (22)a and
b respectively) and the alternative being a post-D (type (iii) below).

(ii) before the alternative alt (but after (i)): the indefinite quantitatives mult, mulŃi
‘much, many’, puŃin, puŃini ‘few’, destul, destui ‘enough’; words of this class are either scalar
(cf. prea/foarte mulŃi ‘too/very many’) or incorporate a degree feature (destul = destul de
mulŃi ‘enough’)

9
 (iii) the alternative alt ‘other’

(iv) after alt: cardinals, câtva, câŃiva ‘some, a few, several’; note that as opposed to
items of class (ii), they are non-scalar quantitatives.
We exemplify here the co-occurrence and ordering restrictions of these functional
categories:
▪ Post-D as D:
(23) trei /alte /multe/aceste mere
three/other/many/these apples
▪ Post-D (i):
(24) merele acestea (bune)
apples-the these-a (good)
▪ Post-D (i) + Post-D (ii)/(iv):
(25) a. aceste puŃine/trei mere
these few /three apples
b. merele acestea puŃine/trei
apples-the these-a few /three
▪ (D+)Post-D (ii) + Post-D (iii):
(26) (aceste) multe alte zile
these many other days
▪ (D+) Post-D (iii) + Post-D (iv):
(27) (aceste) alte trei zile
these other three days

To these we may add some NFEs which only exceptionally co-occur with other NFEs:
the word acelaşi ‘same’ (see also I above), which may be preceded by the indefinite article, at
least for some speakers; possibly also the quotative cutare ‘so and so’, which is exceptionally
preceded by the indefinite article or by a demonstrative.
Based on these co-occurrence possibilities and ordering restrictions, the following
hierarchy of functional projections can be established, using the labels Univ for pre-D
universals, Dem for post-D demonstratives, Quant1 for scalar quantitatives, Alt for the
alternative, Quant2 for non-scalar quantity:

(28) [Univ [ D [ Dem [Quant1 [Alt [Quant2 [ NP]]]]]]]

IV. Always post-D. These may be called quasi-adjective FEs. They have in common
with FEs the fact that they belong to a closed class (they have grammatical meaning), the
placement before other adjectives and, for some of them, the possibility of allowing N
ellipsis. The elements that belong to this class are the following:
▪ ordinals, which are always introduced by al (about al, see 1.3.3.3 below), with the
exception of prim ‘first’ and ultim ‘last’; they will be discussed in section 1.8, dedicated to
definite determiners;
▪ divers, an adjective meaning ‘different’, appears with plurals in environments typical
for bare plurals (cf. (29)c), with the determiner-like meaning ‘various’. It also allows N-
ellipsis:

(29) a. Am cumpărat diverse cărŃi

have.1SG bought various.FPL books(F)
‘I bought various books’
b. Am cumpărat diverse
have.1SG bought various.FPL

10
 ‘I bought various stuff’
c.*Diverse (cărŃi) sunt de vânzare
various.FPL (books(F)) are to sell
intended meaning: ‘various stuff/books is/are for sale’

Diferit ‘different’ has similar properties, but in the determiner-like meaning does not easily
allow N-ellipsis.

 The demonstrative and the interrogative care may be preceded by de resulting in a

construction with the meaning ‘this/what sort of’. In this case de+Dem follows the noun,
which is indefinite, while de+wh- occupies the first position in the DP, presumably in order to
mark the DP as +wh. Notice also that both allow N ellipsis.

(30) a. N-am găsit bluze de-astea

not-have.1SG found blouses de-these
‘I didn’t find this sort of blouses’
b. De care bluze ai găsit?
de which blouses have.2SG found
‘What sort of blouses have you found?’
c. N-am găsit de-astea
not-have.1SG found de-these
‘I didn’t find this sort’
d. De care n-ai găsit?
de which not-have.2SG found
‘What sort didn’t you find?’

We consider that de turns the determiners into adjectival modifiers. The constructions which
result may be called pro-adjectives. Note that the demonstrative agrees with the noun (care is
anyway uninflected). This means that de does not introduce an empty noun of the type kind
(then we would have expected to find singular agreement with this noun, as in English this
sort of …).

Other words which function as pro-adjectives may be considered true adjectives (see chapter
6): asemenea, atare ‘such’. They resemble functional categories in that they are obligatorily
prenominal and they interact with the determiner layer – they are only allowed in indefinite DPs.

 the adjective anumit ‘certain’, combining only with the indefinite article for singular
count nouns and with bare nouns otherwise (un anumit ziar ‘a certain newspaper’ vs.
*anumitul ziar ‘the certain newspaper’, *orice anumit ziar ‘any certain newspaper’). It is
generally prenominal. The same behaviour is shown by the indeclinable adjective anume,
with the difference that it appears more often in postnominal position.
 Oarecare ‘a certain, some’ is usually preceded by the indefinite article or by no
determiner, but in the latter case it is not a D-element, since the noun must be non-countable
or plural. This restriction together with the syntactic positions in which this structure may
appear shows that we have to deal to a ‘bare plural/mass noun’ (which may be analyzed either
as involving a null D or no D at all and licensing of the argument by projecting the Num level,
see above)

(31) a. A fost anunŃat *(un) oarecare Dumitru Anghelescu.

has been announced a oarecare Dumitru Anghelescu
‘A certain Dumitru Anghelescu was announced.’
b. Are (oarecare) talent.
has oarecare talent

11
 ‘He has some talent.’

Another peculiarity of this item is that it may also appear post-nominally, with a different
meaning: ‘not having any relevant properties, common’ (fr. quelconque). With the second
meaning, it is to be analyzed as a regular adjective:

(32) a. Nu-mi plac oamenii ăştia oarecare.

Not-me.CL.DAT like people-the these oarecare
‘I don’t like these ordinary people’
b. El nu e un actor oarecare. E o vedetă.
he not is an actor oarecare. is a star
‘He’s not just any actor. He’s a star’

In the case of N-ellipsis, it has the reading corresponding to the post-nominal position,
so we may say that as a FE it does not allow N ellipsis

(33) A venit un oarecare

has come a oarecare
‘Somebody ordinary/insignificant came’.

Unlike most NIFs, it is uninflected in present-day Romanian (it used to have a plural
oarecari).
 The indeclinable oarece ‘some, of a certain level’ (mostly used for the level of a
quality) is always prenominal. It is generally preceded by the indefinite article un or by no
determiner, but in this case it only takes mass nouns and plurals, which shows that it is never
a D.

Ambii ‘both’ would also belong here if we considered that it contains a suffixed definite article.
For the difference between it and regular adjectives, see I above.

V. Un-inflected pre-D:
(i) The distributivity marker câte, which marks an indefinite DP as being distributed by
some quantificational operator. It may also appear with cardinals in adverbial positions, like a
floating quantifier:

(34) a. ToŃi au venit cu câte un prieten

all.MPL have come with câte a friend
‘Everyone came with a friend (of his)’
b. Fetele au plecat câte trei
girls-the have left câte three
‘The girls left three by three’

The regional and sub-standard pre-determiner alde is used with definite DPs – proper names,
personal common nouns with the definite article, personal pronouns and demonstratives – referring
to persons:
(35) a. alde Dumitru
alde Dumitru
b. alde primarul
alde mair-the
c. alde ăia
alde those.MPL
This word is difficult to translate. Sometimes it expresses familiarity, deference or irony, leaving the
denotation of the DP unchanged. It may also change the reference of the DP, being translatable by
‘somebody like X’ (where X is the referent of the DP). In this use, it is often preceded by de, and

12
 often has an affective connotation, mostly depreciative. Formerly, and nowadays only regionally, it
has the meaning ‘the group of X’, ‘X and its family’. This must have been the original meaning of
the word, since it comes from the article al (formerly, an independent form of the definite article)
and the preposition de, which had a partitive meaning in the old language.

1.3. Noun ellipsis, pro-N and pro-DP

NFEs may be classified according to whether they must combine with overt nouns or they
may appear in a DP without an overt noun. Most NFEs belong to the latter type, which will be
shown to come in two varieties, depending on whether the NFE is to be analyzed as the sister
of an empty N (a pro-N) or as a pro-DP.

1.3.1. NFEs never allowing N-ellipsis

The only undisputable cases are nişte ‘some, s’m’, the uninflected pre-Ds alde and câte and
the adjectival FEs anumit, oarecare and oarece. It is significant that except for anumit, all
these words are uninflected.
Adnominal ce ‘what’ and orice ‘any, whatever’ may be included here, if the
corresponding inanimate pronouns are treated as homonymous forms. See discussion below,
under 1.3.3.1.
The enclitic definite article -L would belong here unless we consider the proclitic form
cel, which may occur with [Ne], to be an allomorph of the definite article (see 1.8).

1.3.2. NFEs allowing N-ellipsis

When appearing without overt nouns, certain NFEs have special ‘pronominal’ (or
‘augmented’) forms (see also chapter 1, the section on inflection):
 the indefinite article un ‘a(n), one’ and the plural partitive unii ‘some’, pronominal
unul, unii, and its compounds vreun ‘some, any (non-specific)’, pronominal vreunul, niciun
‘no’, pronominal niciunul
 the alternative alt ‘other’, pronominal altul
 the demonstrative acest, acel, pronominal acesta, acela, familiar ăsta, ăla (for a
discussion of the use of pronominal forms, see 1.8)
 the interrogative-relative pronoun care ‘which’ and its compounds oricare ‘any,
whoever’, fiecare ‘each’ have special pronominal forms only in the oblique: căruia, căreia,
cărora.
 some NFEs have special pronominal forms only in the plural oblique: this is the case
of NFEs displaying the plural oblique ending -or (any determiner with this ending will have
the pronominal form -ora): the universals toŃi ‘all’ and amândoi ‘both’ and the quantitatives
mulŃi ‘many’, câŃi (‘how many’), oricâŃi (‘any number’), atâŃi (‘so/that many’): tuturora,
amândurora, multora, câtora, oricâtora, atâtora. This only happens when -or is word-final.
Cf. câtorva prenominal as well as pronominal (there is no *câtorava)
All the other NFEs have the same form when combining with overt nouns and with a
pro-N empty category: cardinals (doi ‘two’, trei ‘three’ etc.), the quantitative determiners
câŃiva ‘some, a few’, puŃin, puŃini (‘little’, ‘few’), destul (‘enough’), the strong forms of the
definite article cel, cea etc. (which may also appear with overt nouns, in constructions with
cardinals; see 1.8), the direct case (i.e. nominative-accusative) of care and its compounds. On
the question whether ce ‘what’ and orice ‘any(thing)’ also belong here, see the discussion
under 1.3.3.1.

13
 In most cases, the absence of a noun can be analyzed as noun ellipsis. A content for
the missing noun has to be recovered from the linguistic or extra-linguistic context (in the
following examples, the empty (i.e. non-realized) noun will be marked by [Ne]):

(36) a. Azi am citit trei capitole. Ieri am mai citit două [Ne].
today have.1SG read three chapters yesterday have.1SG more read two
[Ne] = capitole ‘chapters’
‘Today I’ve read three chapters. Yesterday I read two’
b. Aş vrea şi eu câteva [Ne].
Would.1SG want also I a few/some
‘I would like some too’
uttered in front of a cake-display, [Ne] may be prăjituri ‘cakes’

The recovered content may include, beside the noun, complements or modifiers of the
noun. The number of the nominal antecedent may be different (see (37)b):

(37) a. Am învăŃat mai multe poezii de Eminescu, dar nu mai ştiu decât două [Ne]
have.1SG learned more many poems by Eminescu but not more know.1SG only two
‘I’ve learned several poems by Eminescu, but I can only remember two’
[Ne] = poezii de Eminescu ’poems by Eminescu’
b. Câte interpretări bune ale acestei sonate cunoşti? – Nu cunosc niciuna [Ne]
how-many performings good al.FSG this.GEN sonata know.2SG not know.1SG none
‘How many good performings of this sonata do yo know? – I don’t know any.
[Ne] = interpretare bună a acestei sonate ’good performing of this sonata’

But the elided constituent does not necessarily include all the NP-internal material. Modifiers
and complements of an empty (elided) noun may be overtly expressed:

(38) a. o traducere a Iliadei şi două [Ne]] ale Odiseei

a translation of Iliad-the.GEN and two al.FPL Odyssey-the.GEN
‘a translation of Iliad and two of the Odyssey’
[Ne] = traducere ’translation’
b. După această descriere a pregătirilor, urmează [una [Ne]] tot aşa de
after this description al.FSG preparations-the.GEN follows one all so of
amănunŃită a luptelor]
detailed al.FSG fights-the.GEN
‘This description of the preparations is followed by an equally detailed description of the
fights’
[Ne] = descriere ’description’

The elided material must contain the noun and must form a constituent. Thus, (39)b is excluded
because the elided material sticle de vin does not form a constituent – the adjective alb appears inside
the PP de vin and is not elided:
(39) a. Avem deja trei [sticle de vin] . Ne mai trebuie două [Ne]]
have.1PL already three bottles of wine us.CLDAT still needs two
‘We already have three bottles of red wine. We need two more’.
b. Avem deja trei [sticle [de vin roşu]] . * Ne mai trebuie două [Ne] alb
have.1PL already three bottles of wine red us.C.DAT still needs two white

In the absence of a contextual antecedent, [Ne] may receive a content by default,

generally +human ((40)a-b,d), and with a special gender form (feminine plural) -animate or
non-specified for animacy ((40)c,e):

14
(40) a. Fiecare îşi vede numai interesul lui.
each RELF.DAT sees only interest-the his
‘Everybody sees only his own interest’
b. ToŃi caută fericirea.
all.MPL seek happiness-the
‘Everybody seeks happiness.’
c. Toate se vor preface în cenuşă.
all.FPL REFL will.3PL turn in ashes
‘Everything (all things) will turn into ashes.’
d. M-au căutat mulŃi.
me.CL.ACC -have.3PL searched many.MPL
‘Many people have asked for me.’
e. A adus multe.
has brought many.FPL
‘He brought many things.’

The interpretational possibilities noted above are identical for NFEs with augmented forms
and for NFEs which do not have special forms in the absence of an overt N.
The augmented forms, in most cases, are built with an element -a, which may be
analyzed either as an incorporated pro-N (a pro-N surfacing as –a) (see (41)c) or as a special
form of the NFE in the context _[Ne] (see (41)d):

(41) a. acest copil

this child
b. acesta
this-one
c. [[Dacest][Na]]
d. [[Dacesta][Ne]]

In two cases – un ‘a(n), one’ and its compounds vreun ‘some, any’, niciun ‘no’, and alt
‘(an)other’ – the pronominal form looks like a definite declension (i.e. affixation with the
definite article –L):

(42) a. un copil
a child
a´. unul [Ne]
a-ul
‘one’
b. altă problemă
other problem
‘another problem’
b´. alta [Ne]
other-a
‘another one’

This doesn’t mean that a definite D is really present in this case: the meaning is clearly
indefinite, and the forms of the oblique case are different from those of the definite declension
in the masculine singular and in the plural (the oblique endings of the definite declension are
masc.sg -lui, f.sg. -ei, m.f.pl. -lor; the augmented declension of un and alt have the oblique
endings m.sg. -ui, f.sg. -ei, m.f.pl. -or, to which -a is added, as can be seen in the table
below):

15
(43)
Prenominal Augmented
m.sg. f.sg. m.pl. f.pl. m.sg. f.sg. m.pl. f.pl.
direct alt altă alŃi alte altul alta alŃii altele
oblique altui altei altor altor altuia alteia altora altora
direct un o unii/nişte unii/nişte unul una unii unele
oblique unui unei unor unor unuia uneia unora unora

The meaning is not necessarily partitive either (so in spite of the superficial similarity,
the apparent definite markers do not express partitivity, like in French l’un, l’autre):

(44) a. Ce rochie frumoasă! – Am şi eu una aşa.

what dress(F) nice have.1SG also I one-a like-that
‘What a nice dress! – I too have one like that.’
b. S-a terminat filmul? Las’ că pun eu altul.
REFL-has finished film(M)-the let that put.1SG I other-ul
‘The film is over? Don’t worry, I’ll play another one.’

We may notice that the definite inflection is used for cases where the addition of -a would
have made the terminations indistinguishable (masc. *un-a = fem. ună-a)4. But this still
doesn’t explain why special pronominal forms were needed for this case, since other NFEs
show no formal difference in cases of nominal ellipsis: mult, mulŃi ‘much, many’ (its only
special pronominal form is the oblique plural multora), the direct form of care, etc.
In line with these observations, we may analyze –ul and –a as pro-Ns (see (45)) that
are inflected for gender and number (compare the invariable –a that combines with
demonstrative determiners, which are themselves inflected for gender and number) or as
special forms of these NFEs used in the context _[Ne] (see (46)):

(45) a. [[Dun][Nul]]
b. [[Daltă][Na]]
(46) [Dunul][Ne]

Traditionally, NFEs in this context were called ‘pronouns’, while in prenominal position they
were called ‘pronominal adjectives’. However, the analysis in terms of [Ne] is superior on the
following grounds: first of all and most important, it treats as unique lexical entries items
which were considered ambivalent in the traditional theory. The traditional view cannot
explain why all these words show this dual behaviour (adjectives and pronouns), and with
such a regularity not only in a single language, but also across languages. Second, a structure
containing [Ne] is the simplest representation of the semantics of these constructions: as we
have seen, as in other cases of ellipsis, a nominal content for the missing NP is contextually
recovered (see (36)-(38)), and only in the absence of this possibility a content by default is
inferred (see (40)); [Ne] does not stand for an entity, as in the case of personal pronouns, but
for a nominal content, so it is better called a pro-N. A third argument is that in some
languages this pro-N may be overt. English uses in some cases the form one where Romanian
has [Ne]:

(47) a. fiecare casă Romanian

every house English

4
In the case of demonstratives, the forms are still distinguishable due to stem alternations: masc. acesta,
acela, fem. aceasta, aceea.

16
 b. fiecare [Ne] Romanian
every one English
c. altă problemă Romanian
another problem English
d. alta [Ne] Romanian
another one English

Fourth, [Ne] may be found independently of any (overt) NFIs in Romanian (for details, see
section 1.3.4):

(48) a. Ai găsit romane de Malraux?

have.2SG found novels by Malraux
‘Have you found novels by Malraux?’
b. Nu, am cumpărat numai [Ne] de Gide.
no, have.1SG bought only of Gide
‘No, I bought only (novels) by Gide’

In B’s replique it is clear that we do not have a pro-DP anaphor: B does not speak about the
same referent as A. What the two DPs have in common is part of their descriptive content,
namely the noun romane ‘novels’.
If -a and -L (-ul etc.) of the augmented inflection are analyzed as a pro-N or as
allomorphs used in the context of an empty N, we expect them to appear, when several NFEs
are present, only on the FE adjacent to the N position, i.e. the last one. This expectation is
borne out, except for demonstratives, which always have -a in the absence of an overt N, even
if they are not adjacent to the N position (see (49)e):

(49) a. multor bărbaŃi → multora

many.PL.OBL men many.PL.OBL-a
b. multor altor bărbaŃi → multor altora
many.PL.OBL other.PL.OBL men many.PL.OBL other.PL.OBL-a
c. tuturor elevilor → tuturora
all.PL.OBL pupils all.PL.OBL-a
d. tuturor acestor elevi → tuturor acestora
all.PL.OBL these.OBL pupils all.PL.OBL these.PL.OBL-a
e. aceste două case → acestea două
these two houses these-a two

The determiner unii ‘some’, which is always partitive in adnominal position, is not restricted
to this type of interpretation in phrases without an overt noun, but rather becomes the plural
counterpart of the indefinite article un(ul). That’s why in the following example ((50)a),
where a partitive interpretation is unlikey, we cannot introduce the missing noun and keep the
same meaning ((50)b). If we want to preserve the meaning, we have to replace unii with the
non-partitive determiner nişte ((50)c):

17
(50) a. Am cumpărat trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a cumpărat unii galbeni
have.1SG bought roses pink and Mihai has bought some yellow
‘I bought pink roses, and Mihai bought yellow (ones)’
b. #Am cumpărat trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a cumpărat unii trandafiri galbeni.
have.1SG bought roses pink and Mihai has bought some roses yellow
c. Am cumpărat trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a cumpărat nişte trandafiri galbeni.
have.1SG bought roses pink and Mihai has bought s’m roses yellow
‘I bought pink roses, and Mihai bought some yellow (ones)’

As we have noticed in 1.3.1, the non-partitive existential indefinite nişte cannot appear
without an overt noun. So unii functions as a +[Ne] form not only for unii but also for nişte. A
possible explanation is that both uses of unii stem from a feature ‘+contextual-recovery’ (as
we will suggest below for care). This may be recovery of a definite referential antecedent in
the partitive use, but of a nominal antecedent for N ellipsis. But we must note that unii may
also be interpreted without recovery of a nominal content from the context (without N
ellipsis), meaning ‘some people’. So it appears that it is a rather generalized form for the
indefinite determiner in the context +[Ne].

1.3.3 Pro-DPs (pronouns)

Certain determiner-like elements, e.g., nimeni, nimic ‘nobody, nothing’, never appear with an
overt noun :

(51) N-am adus nicio/*nimic carte

not-have.1SG brought no / nothing book

Such elements will be called pronouns, or pro-DPs. In this case, the presence of a nominal
element as a sister of Det itself is debatable. These elements may instead be analyzed either as
intransitive determiners (determiners with no nominal complement) or as fused heads,
incorporating a nominal element (the incorporation may be pre-syntactic, in which case a
constituent of the form D+N, which is listed in the Lexicon, enters the derivation as such;
alternatively, N+D might be the result of head-to-head movement of N to D).
In discussing this class, we will distinguish between indefinite pronouns and personal
pronouns.

1.3.3.1. Indefinite pronouns

It is interesting to compare indefinite pronouns (which cannot be followed by an overt noun)
with the corresponding prenominal determiners (see the table in (52)):

18
(52)
Prenominal determiner Pronoun
+lexical N +pro-N +animate -animate
existential un ‘a’ unul ‘one’ cineva;careva ceva
‘somebody’ ‘something’
interrogative care ‘which’, care ‘which’ cine ‘who’ ce ‘what’
ce ‘what’
Negative niciun ‘no’ niciunul nimeni nimic
‘no one’ ‘nobody’ ‘nothing’
alternative alt ‘(an)other’ altul ‘another altcineva altceva
one’ ‘somebody ‘something
else’ else’
free-choice oricare, orice oricare oricine orice
‘any’ ‘any(one)’ ‘anybody’ ‘anything’

The two series of elements contain the same operators, but differ regarding the interpretation
of the non-overt (or implicit) nominal element: when used without a noun, prenominal
determiners allow a contextual recovery of the descriptive content (see the previous section),
whereas indefinite pronouns never do so:

(53) a. N-am adus niciuna.

not-have.1SG brought no.FSG.AUGM
‘I didn’t bring any (one).’
Ex. of contextual recovery: [Ne] = carte ‘book’
b. N-am adus nimic.
not-have.1SG brought nothing
‘I brought nothing’
No contextual recovery

If the possibility of contextual recovery is a general property of an empty N (notated [Ne]), as

we have seen in 1.3.2, these contrasts show that indefinite pronouns don’t contain an empty
N.
The fused existentials preceded by the alternative alt (labelled ‘alternative pronouns in
table (52)) are treated as compounds by the written norm: altcineva ‘somebody else’, altceva
‘something else’. Since the order between existentials and alternatives is generally the
opposite (un altul ‘another one’), we may adopt the suggestion of the norm and treat these
forms as compounds, fused-head alternatives.
It should be observed that the interrogative ce ‘what’ and its compound orice
‘anything, whatever’ without a noun behave as pronouns (they don’t allow contextual
recovery of a descriptive content), but they may also be used as prenominal determiners. We
may treat these prenominal forms as homonymous forms, since they do not have the
inanimate feature of their pronominal counterparts ce ‘what’, orice ‘anything’. Thus, we
cannot derive (54)b from (54)a:

(54) a. Vorbeşte cu orice profesor !

speak.2SG with orice professor
‘Talk to any professor !’
b. *Vorbeşte cu orice [Ne]!
speak.2SG with orice
(intended meaning: ‘talk to anyone!’)

19
However, the formal identity between the inanimate interrogative pronoun and the (non-D-
linked) interrogative determiner is a property found in other languages (ex. engl. what, it. que,
alb. ç). Since the inanimate pronoun is also used for the uttermost genericity, embracing both
animates and inanimates, we could say that the forms ce and orice are in fact underspecified,
containing only the features [D],[wh] and [D], [free-choice] respectively. Their pronominal
meaning would result from the concurrence of the more specified terms (ori)cine (+animate)
and (ori)care (+partitive). Since the partitive feature of care and oricare requires contextual
recovery, ce and orice would be used only for cases in which there is no such contextual
recovery, and the empty N receives a value by default. Under such an analysis, ce and orice
would belong to the type of determiners allowing N ellipsis (1.3.2. above). But notice that
even when no partitivity (i.e. selection from a definite group) is involved, ce cannot be used
with N ellipsis:

(55) Are nişte cărŃi, dar nu ştiu ce cărŃi / *ce / (de) care
has s’m books but not know.1SG what books / what / (of) which

One could argue that the feature of care which determines that it is the only interrogative
allowing pro-N is not simply partitive, but rather something like ‘+contextual recovery’: this
may refer either to a definite group, as in the partitive use, also found adnominally, or to a
nominal content, in cases of pro-N. Note moreover that in the absence of the overt noun, in
order to question the type of books, the explicit quality wh- expression de care lit. ‘of which
(sort)’ (= ‘what sort of’) must be used, otherwise the question asks to specify the books. (On
determiners preceded by de, with a quality meaning, see 1.2 above.) Here we will not choose
between these two possible analyses of the forms ce and orice.

The fact that indefinite pronouns allow restrictive modifiers (exemplified in (56))
could be taken as an argument for the presence of a nominal element, since restrictive
modification is generally considered to be expressed inside the projection which is the
complement of the determiner. We may analize this nominal element as an incorporated non-
anaphoric grammatical N, with the general features +/- human.

(56) a. Am întrebat pe cineva priceput la asta.

have.1SG asked DOM somebody skillful at this
‘I asked somebody good at this’
b. Vreau ceva dulce.
want.1SG something sweet
‘I want something sweet’

1.3.3.2. Personal pronouns

In the case of personal pronouns, there are several arguments against the presence of the
nominal element.
First, unlike indefinites they don’t admit restrictive modification, (compare (56)a to
(57)):

(57) L-am întrebat pe el (*priceput la asta)

HIM.CL.ACC-have.1SG asked DOM him skillful at this

Moreover, while both demonstratives and personal pronouns are used to refer to salient
discourse referents (given either in the discourse or in the extra-linguistic context), personal
pronouns but not demonstratives may be bound by a c-commanding antecedent (see chapter 4
section 8.2.):

20
(58) Mirceai crede că eli / *acestai este cel mai bun.
Mircea thinks that he / this-one is the more good
’Mircea thinks that he/this one is the best.’

Since DPs with overt NPs can never be bound (see (59)), the impossibility of being bound
may be related to the existence of a NP constituent inside acesta ‘this’. This is supported by
the fact that demonstratives may appear with an overt noun (they are adnominal determiners
allowing N ellipsis, the type 1.3.2. above, unlike personal pronouns) (see (60)):

(59) *Mirceai crede că individuli e deştept

Mircea thinks that guy-the is smart
(60) a. acest băiat
this boy
b. *el băiat
he boy

Thus, if the blocking of the bound-variable reading is explained by the presence of a nominal
element, it follows that personal pronouns don’t have a nominal element.
On the other hand, there are also arguments in favor of the analysis of personal
pronouns as D+N. First of all, in some languages (but not in Romanian5) some personal
pronouns can take an NP-complement:

(61) a. We linguists English

b. Noi linguisti Italian
c. Nous linguistes French

As for indefinite pronouns, the N-element of personal pronouns would represent the
descriptive content, and the D-element an operator. In discussing what these two may be, we
must distinguish between 1st and 2nd person singular and the others: we would never need any
descriptive content in order to identify the speaker and the addressee - however, we may think
of the possibility to use a description in order to distinguish among several possible
addressees, as in you over there! -. On the contrary, the plural forms of the 1st and 2nd person
include the speaker and the addressee, respectively, in a group, hence they may be endowed
with a descriptive content introducing the group. This explains why they allow NP-
complements in some languages, as we have seen in (61).
In the case of the third person, the descriptive content could be represented by the
gender features, while the number could be generated in Num, the level intermediate between
N and D.
Indeed, third person pronouns have been analyzed by some grammarians as definite
article+pro-N. This would eliminate an apparent exception in the behaviour of determiners:
while most determiners may appear with a pro-N, the definite article cannot do so, unless the
DP contains a restrictive modifier:

(62) Romanian English

a. Îmi place cel de acolo. I like the one over there.
CL.1SG.DAT likes the of there

5
To express (60), Romanian must use a definite DP in a ‘apposition’-like structure (see chapter 4
section 4):
(i) Noi lingviştii
we linguists-the

21
 b. *Îmi place cel. *I like the one.
CL.1SG.DAT likes the.MSG
c. Îmi place fiecare. I like everyone.
CL.1SG.DAT likes each
d. Îmi place acela. I like that one.
CL.1SG.DAT likes that.MSG.AUGM
e. Îmi place una. I like one.6
CL.1SG.DAT likes a.FSG.AUGM
f. Îmi plac două. I like two.
CL.1SG.DAT like.3PL two.F

According to this analysis, the impossibility of (62)b would be due to the fact that definite
article+pro-N is realized as a personal pronoun, by incorporation. But then an explanation is
needed for the lack of incorporation in (62)a.
The gender features of pro-N would explain the behaviour of personal pronouns in
languages with grammatical gender (Romanian being one of them). In these languages,
gender is not always semantically motivated, but for some nouns it is a (purely formal) lexical
property, which as such must be generated on the noun. As we may see in (63), personal
pronouns referring to inanimate entities inherit the gender of the (textual or contextual)
nominal antecedent. Since in these cases gender is not a semantic feature which could
independently establish reference, but a lexical feature of nouns, the presence of unmotivated
gender on pronouns could be explained by the existence of a pro-N element, which would
copy the gender feature of its antecedent:

(63) a. Am pus paltonuli pe scaun. Peste eli am pus umbrela.

have.1SG put coat(M)-the.SG on chair over 3MSG have.1SG put umbrella-the
‘I put the coat on the chair. On top of it I put the umbrella’
b. Am pus cămaşa pe scaun. Peste eai am pus umbrela.
have.1SG put shirt(F)-the. SG on chair over 3FSG have.1SG put umbrella-the
‘I put the shirt on the chair. Over it I put the umbrella.’

The same situation is found when number is lexical:

(64) Am pus pantalonii noi. I-am primit cadou sâmbătă.

have.1SG put trousers(M)-the.PL new 3MPL.ACC-have.1SG received present Saturday
‘I put on the new trousers. I got them as a present on Saturday.’

Another argument in favour of the analysis of personal pronouns as def. art. +pro-N is the fact
that sometimes they don’t refer to the same entity as their antecedent, but only undertake the
descriptive content of the antecedent (such pronouns are called ‘pronouns of laziness’7):

(65) Unii oameni îşi pierd averea la cărŃi, alŃii o cheltuie pe băutură.
some people REFL.DAT loose fortune-the at cards others it spend on drinking
‘Some people loose their fortune at cards, others spend it on drinking’
it=‘their fortune’:
‘Some peoplei loose theiri fortune at cards, othersj spend theirj fortune on drinking’

6
Rom. una and Engl. one are analyzed as the indefinite article + [Ne]
7
These pronouns are also called ‘paycheck pronouns’, after the example by which they were first
introduced into discussion in the linguistic literature:
(i) The man who gave his paycheck to his wife was wiser than the man who gave it to his
mistress’.

22
The relation between 3rd person pronouns and the definite article is also expressed in
morphology, in some languages: for instance, in most Romance languages, the definite article
and the 3rd person pronoun have the same origin, lat. ille, hence in some cases we still find a
formal identity between the two (mainly between accusative clitics and the article: French
masc. sg. le, fem. sg. la, pl. les; in Romanian, we find in the masculine singular the same
element l, with various allomorphs, in the masculine plural i also with several allomorphs, in
the feminine plural le, only in the feminine singular the forms diverge: o for the pronoun, a
for the article; the nominative and strong accusative forms show an e- followed by endings
identical to the suffixal definite article: el, ei, ea, ele vs. –l, -a, -i, -le). There are also
languages where 3rd person pronouns may always be used with a noun, although not as a
definite article, but rather as a demonstrative - such is the case of Latin is (which only in the
case of Ns modified by relative clauses behaves as an article).
In the following, we won’t treat personal pronouns, reflexives and reciprocals, which
are discussed in chapter 4.

We have seen that the 1st and 2nd person plural introduce a descriptive content
‘belonging to a group including the speaker/addressee’ which can combine with other
descriptive content in the DP, specifying this group. So we expect the features 1pl and 2pl to
appear independently of the determiner, being even bound by other determiners. This is
indeed the case, in Romanian. Indefinite determiners (including quantitatives functioning as
D), especially when appearing without an overt noun, can trigger first or second person plural
agreement on the verb or a first/second person plural clitic:

(66) a. Unii /fiecare vrem să ajungem mai repede.

some.MPL/ each want.1PL SUBJ arrive.1PL more fast
‘Some/each of of us want to arrive sooner.’
b. Ne-a lăsat pe câŃiva să aşteptăm.
us.CL.ACC-has let DOM a few SUBJ wait.1PL
‘He let some/a few of us waiting.’
c. Multora ne place dansul
many.DAT.AUGM us.CL.DAT likes dance-the
‘Many of us like dancing’
d. Care vreŃi să veniŃi cu mine?
which want.2PL SUBJ come.2PL with me
‘Which of you wants to come with me?’

This seems to suggest the existence of an empty noun marked 1pl or 2pl. It should be noted
that the same agreement patterns may appear even when there is an overt noun expressed8, but
this is much more restricted (see (67)c-d compared to (66) ):

(67) a. Două familii am fost afectate de calamitate

two families have.1PL been affected by disaster
‘We, two families, have been affected by the disaster’
b. Suntem mulŃi pensionari în această Ńară
are.1PL many pensioners in this country
‘There are a lot of us pensioners in this country’
c. *Care studenŃi vreŃi să veniŃi cu mine?
which students want.2PL SUBJ come.2PL with me
d. *Multor pensionari ne place dansul
many.DAT pensioners us.CL.DAT likes dance-the

8
These forms are colloquial, the norm tends to avoid them.

23
This suggests that the features 1pl and 2pl may appear on the ‘index’ of the DP (the feature
bundle which determines external agreement) without being expressed either in N or in D.
While the exact locus of their generation is not clear, it is important to notice that they are not
generated under D (D is occupied, in these examples, by quantitatives such as două ‘two’ or
mulŃi ‘many’, giving rise to an indefinite interpretation)9.
Indefinite pronouns, which never take nominal complements, never allow this type of
agreement. Compare the negative pronoun nimeni in (68)a-b with the negative determiner
niciun in (68)d ((68)c shows that nimeni is a pronoun, (68)e shows that niciun is a determiner
that selects an overt or covert N):

(68) a. Nimeni dintre noi nu a /*am adormit.

nobody among us not has / have.1PL fallen-asleep
‘None of us has fallen asleep.’
b. Nimeni nu a /*am adormit
nobody not has/ have.1PL fallen-asleep
c. *Nimeni băiat nu a adormit
nobody boy not has fallen-asleep
d. Niciunul (dintre noi) nu a /am adormit
none.MSG.AUGM (among us) not has /have.1PL fallen-asleep
e. Niciun băiat nu a adormit
no boy not has fallen-asleep

1.3.3.3. The ‘genitival and ordinal article’ al

Al, which is made up of the definite article preceded by a-, is a determiner-like element that is
a necessary ingredient of genitive DPs and of ordinals:

(69) a. o poartă a oraşului

a gate(F) al.FSG city-the.GEN
‘a gate of the city’
b. Mi-au plăcut ale Rodicăi
me.CL.DAT-have.3PL liked al.FPL Rodica.GEN
‘I liked Rodica’s’ (a content for the N-head is contextually recovered)
c. al doilea război mondial
al.MSG two-lea war worldwide
‘the second World War’
d. războiul al doilea
war-the al.MSG two-lea
‘the second war’
e. Atunci a intrat al doilea
then has entered al.MSG two-lea
‘Then the second one entered’

Al is different from the indefinite pronouns in 1.3.3.1: while these pronouns have a descriptive
content specified for animacy (or personhood) and don’t require contextual identification of a
nominal element, in the case of al the nominal element is generally contextually identified,
behaving as pro-N. Only in the absence of a contextual antecedent, a descriptive content is
inferred on the base of its ϕ-features: ai lui Vodă ‘al.MPL GEN prince’: animate, ‘prince’s men
(friends, supporters)’, ale mele ‘al.FPL my’: inanimate, ‘my stuff’. So we may conclude that al
contains a pro-N.
9
The person feature might attach externally to the DP, inside a „big DP’, and move from this position to
the inflectional domain of the clause, getting realized as subject agreement on the verb or as clitics.

24
 Note also that al has a definite meaning only when it is not embedded in another DP in
postnominal position: in (69)a we see that the phrase al+genitive can function as the
complement of an indefinite DP, in (69)d we see that ordinals may appear after the noun
suffixed with the definite article, in which case the definiteness meaning is obviously
expressed by the article. On the other hand, (69)c shows that if the ordinal is prenominal, it
may mark the DP as definite, presumably due to the +def feature which is in this case active
in al.
Because of these restrictions on the definite meaning and of the distributional
restrictions (al has to be sister of a genitive or of an ordinal), al cannot be considered as an
allomorph of the definite article in the context of a pro-N element. Therefore we treat it as a
different lexeme, made up by a D and a pro-N element. Historically, it was a proclitic form of
the definite article (coming from lat. ille), but nowadays it is replaced in this function by cel.
For more on al, see chapter 5 Genitives, Possessives Adjectives and Dative Possessives.

1.3.4. Note on nominal ellipsis in bare nouns

In the section 1.3.2 we have shown that most NFEs allow ellipsis of the noun. We have also
noticed that nominal ellipsis is also possible in bare nouns, where no overt NFE is present.
As we have shown in section 1.1, argumental bare plural and mass nouns may be analyzed
either as DPs with a null D or as NumPs (see also chapter 2). Thus, we may say that it is the
null D or Num that licenses the empty noun.
Note that ellipsis is possible even if the phrase doesn’t contain any overt material:

(70) a. A: Nu mai avem flori. B: Lasă că aduce Mihai (Ø)

not still have.1PL flowers let that brings Mihai
A:‘We have no more flowers left’ B:‘Don’t worry, Mihai will bring (some)’
b. Laptele meu s-a terminat. Uită-te, poate a mai rămas (Ø) la tine în frigider
milk-the my REFL-has finished look-REFL perhaps has still left at you in fridge
‘My milk is over. Look, perhaps there’s still some left in your fridge’

Ellipsis also allows various types of overt material: adjectives, PP modifiers, (quasi-)
argumental PPs (we see an author PP in (71)c), relative clauses:

(71) Adjectives:
a. Am luat trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a luat [Ne] galbeni.
have.1SG taken roses(M) pink and Mihai has taken yellow.MPL
‘I bought pink roses, and Mihai bought yellow.’
PP-modifiers:
b. La noi sunt şi case de piatră. La voi sunt numai [Ne] de cărămidă
at us are also houses of stone at you are only of brick
‘We also have stone-made houses, you only have brick houses.’
(Quasi)-argumental PPs:
c. El cântă numai sonate de Beethoven. Eu cânt şi [Ne] de Chopin
he plays only sonatas by Beethoven I play also by Chopin
‘He plays only sonatas by Beethoven. I also play sonatas by Chopin’
Relative clauses:
d. A. Ai cumpărat destule cămăşi?
have.2SG bought enough shirts
‘Did you buy enough shirts?’
B. Da, dar n-am găsit [Ne] care să le vină tuturor.
yes but not-have.1SG found which SUBJ CL.DAT suit all.DAT

25
 ‘Yes, but I didn’t find (any) which would suit all.’

Genitives appear in this context only introduced by de (the structure de-al, see chapter 5). In
(72) we see that in the absence of an overt head noun or determiner, the phrases
de+al+Genitive behave like bare plural and mass nouns – they have an indefinite
interpretation and display the syntactic constraints which characterize bare plurals and mass
nouns (cannot appear before the verb except as a contrastive focus or contrastive topic, i.e.
dislocated in the left periphery). This indicates that in this construction we have to deal with a
N-ellipsis or pro-N governed by a null D or Num:

(72) a. Au venit de-ai lui

have.3PL come de-al.MPL his
‘Relatives/friends of his came’
b. # De-ai lui au venit (unless contrastive)
de-al.MPL his have.3PL come
c. *A venit de-a lui
has come de-al.FSG. his
(72)´ [[D/Num Ø][NP [NØ] [DP de-ai lui]]]

Some verbs allow in the object position (including deep objects of unaccusatives, cf. (73)b-c
to (73)d) a construction which looks like ellipsis of a mass noun in the context of a partitive
complement ((73)a-d), showing a bare noun distribution (cf. (63)e). Note however that this
construction seems to be possible only for affected objects, which suggests that partitive
phrases are selected by the verb.

(73) a. Am aruncat [Ne] din pâine.

have.1SG thrown of bread
‘I threw away some of the bread’
b. A mai rămas [Ne] din pâine
has still left of bread
‘There is still some of the bread left’
c. Au venit [Ne] din invitaŃi.
have.3PL come of guests
‘Some of the guests have come’
d. *Dorm [Ne] din copii
sleep.3PL of children
e. * [Ne] din pâine a fost aruncată /a căzut pe jos
of bread has been thrown /has fallen down
f. ??Am văzut din filmele lui /din piese
have.1SG seen of films-the his /of dramas
g. *Admir din picturile lui
admire.1SG of paintings-the his

The combination [D/Nume][Ne] has a more restricted distribution than that of bare plural and
mass nouns. For instance, it is impossible after prepositions, unless the NP contains an
adjective (in which case it is possible only to some extent):

(74) a. Am venit cu trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a venit cu [Ne] galbeni.

have.1SG come with roses(M) pink and Mihai has come with yellow.MPL
‘I came with pink roses, and Mihai with yellow.’
b. *Noi locuim în case de piatră. Voi locuiŃi în [Ne] de cărămidă /în albe
we live in houses of stone you(PL) live in of brick /in white

26
 ‘We live in stone-made houses, you live in brick houses.’
c. *El se desfată numai cu sonate de Beethoven. Eu mă desfăt şi cu [Ne] de Chopin
he REFL enjoys only with sonatas by Beethoven I REFL enjoy also with by Chopin
‘He amuses himself only with sonatas by Beethoven. I also amuse myself with sonatas by
Chopin’
d. A: Ai venit cu destule cămăşi?
have.2SG come with enough shirts
‘Did you bring enough shirts ?’
B:*Da, dar n-am venit cu [Ne] care să le vină tuturor.
yes but not-have.1SG come with which SUBJ CL.DAT suit.3PL all.DAT
‘Yes, but I didn’t bring shirts that would suit them all.’

This impossibility could be due to the clitic-like character of prepositions, which need a
complement with an overt head.
In contexts where [D/Num+pl][Ne] cannot be used, the complex head Num+pro-N unii,
unele shows up. As we have seen, in this case unii is not the same item as the prenominal
determiner unii (it is not obligatorily partitive) (see (50) above, repeated here):

(75) a. Am cumpărat trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a cumpărat unii galbeni

have.1SG bought roses(M) pink and Mihai has bought some.MPL yellow
’I have bought pink roses, and Mihai bought some yellow ones’
b. Am venit cu trandafiri roz, iar Mihai a venit cu unii galbeni
have.1SG come with roses(M) pink and Mihai has come with some.MPL yellow
’I have come with pink roses, and Mihai came with some yellow ones’

1.4. Modifiers and complements licensed by nominal functional elements, phrasal NFEs
and the issue of partitive PPs

Functional words are typically heads, i.e., X° elements (words rather than phrases). However,
as we have said, some NFEs may have dependents of their own. In some cases, there are
reasons to treat these dependents as combining with the FE before the FE combines with the
NP (i.e., as forming a constituent with the FE). Such constituents will be analyzed as
occupying a specifier position in the functional projections which dominate the NP.

1.4.1. Approximation modifiers and other modifiers licensed by quantifiers

Cardinals, universals (including the distributive universal fiecare ‘each, every’ and the free-
choice items orice ‘any-what’ ‘whatever’, oricare ‘any-which’ ‘whichever, no matter which,
any’) and negatives admit approximation modifiers. We may analize these modifiers as
attached to the constituent D+NP (see (76)´), so it is not necessary to treat these determiners
as specifiers:

(76) a. aproape trei ani

almost three years
b. aproape toŃi portocalii
almost all orange-trees-the
c. aproape orice zi
almost any day
d. aproape nicio plăcere
almost no pleasure
(76)´ [DP aproape [DP nicio plăcere]]

27
The distributive universal fiecare ‘each, every’ licenses the right adjunct PP în parte (lit. ‘in
part’), which emphasizes the distributive meaning (‘separately’).

1.4.2. Phrasal cardinals

Cardinals, besides admitting a wider range of modifiers (cam ‘around’, exact ‘exactly’, doar
‘only’, măcar ‘at least’, vreo ‘around’), can also enter complex constructions, in which they
appear after prepositions ((77)a-d) or comparatives ((77)e), or modified by a special adverbial
superlative (special by not containing the comparative degree head: cel mult, cel puŃin lit. ‘the
much’, ‘the few’: ‘at most’, ‘at least’, vs. cel mai mult lit. ‘the more much’: ‘the most’)
((77)f):

(77) a. în jur de cinci

around of five
b. între trei şi zece
between three and ten
c. între unul şi trei profesori
between one and three teachers
d. Clădirea are sub şapte etaje
building-the has under seven floors
‘The building has less than seven floors’
e. mai mult de douăzeci
more much of twenty
‘more than twenty’
f. cel mult şaisprezece
the much sixteen
‘at most sixteen’

These constructions (apart from (77)f) behave as being ‘two-headed’, having an internal head
and a different external head: inside, they look like constructions headed by prepositions or
degree words, but they have the distribution of numeral determiners. As shown by (77)c, it is
the last word which behaves as the external head of the construction (the noun is in the plural,
agreeing with the second numeral, trei, and not in the singular, as the first numeral). Notice
also that the first numeral in this complex constructions behaves as if combining with a pro-N
(it has the pronominal form unul and not the prenominal form un).
Given this behaviour, the strings Prep+Card, Deg+Card may be analyzed as forming a
constituent that occupies the specifier position of the functional projection which hosts
cardinals (which we labeled Quant2 in section 1.2 above). As we said in section 1.1, we
assume that when the specifier of a functional projection is filled, its head may remain empty
(see also 1.5 for issues concerning quantitative FIs):

(78) [Quant2P [între unul şi trei][Quant2´ Quant2o [NP profesori ]]].

1.4.3. Scalar quantitatives

Some quantity FEs allow the same degree modification as gradable adjectives (they project a
degree structure, see chapter 6):

(79) a. foarte multe gropi

very many holes
b. Iliada are mai puŃine versuri decât Mahabharata
Iliad has more few verses than Mahabharata

28
 ‘The Iliad has fewer verses than the Mahabharata’

The quantitative atât ‘so/as/that much/many’ is a degree head with a general equative
meaning ‘having the same number/quantity as x’, which receives different interpretations
depending on the context: (i) if x is given in the discourse or in the context, it has an
anaphoric-deictic reading; (ii) if x is introduced by a complement, it has an equative reading;
(iii) if x is free, it has an exclamative reading. The equative meaning is strengthened by the
preposed modifier tot:

(80) Are (tot) atâtea defecte câte calităŃi.

has (tot) so-many.FPL faults(F) how-many.FPL qualities(F)
‘He has just as many faults as qualities’

Since the degree modification characterizes adjectives and adverbs, we will call these
quantitative FEs adjectival quantitatives, labeling them QA. We consider that QAs occupy the
specifier position of the functional projection dedicated to scalar quantitatives (Quant1, see
section 1.1 above).

1.4.4. Partitive PPs

Partitive PPs are introduced by the prepositions dintre, specialized for plurals, and din, which
combines both with plurals and mass nouns (‘of, among’):

(81) a. Am citit multe dintre / din cărŃile recomandate de profesor

have.1SG read many dintre / din books-the recommended by teacher
‘I read many of the books recommended by the teacher’
b. Am băut puŃin *dintre / din vin
have.1SG drunk little dintre / din wine
‘I drank little of the wine’

The partitive PP refers to a set out of which the determiner selects a subset (the whole DP
denoting a subset of the partitive DP). When combined with quantificational determiners such
as the distributive universal fiecare ‘each’, the free-choice item oricare (which also has a
universal reading, see 3.3.5) or the negative niciun ‘no’, partitive complements express the set
over which the determiner quantifies.
The presence of a partitive PP does not depend on the noun. Instead, it appears to be
sensitive to the determiner. That’s why partitive PPs have been sometimes considered to be
second complements of the determiners. Thus, while indefinite and quantificational
determiners allow partitive PPs, definite determiners allow them only on very restricted
conditions: either the determiner is the distal demonstrative acel ‘that’, provided that it
combines with a restrictive relative clause (cf. (82)a to (82)b), or it is an ordinal, usually
followed by cardinals (see (82)c-d), or the phrase contains a superlative, in which case the
partitive is the so-called ‘complement of the superlative’ ((82)e):

(82) a. Aceia dintre voi care ştiu o poezie să ridice mâna.

those.MPL.AUGM of you(PL) which know.3PL a poem SUBJ raise.3PL hand-the
‘Those of you who know a poem should raise their hands’
b. *Aceia dintre voi nerăbdători să ridice mâna
those.MPL.AUGM of you(PL) impatient SUBJ raise.3PL hand-the
c. Primii (trei) dintre voi să ridice mâna
first-the.MPL (three) of you(PL) SUBJ raise.3PL the-hand

29
 d. Următorii patru dintre voi vor fi primiŃi peste o oră.
next-the.MPL four of you(PL) will be received after an hour
’The next four of you will be received in an hour.’
e. Cei mai buni dintre voi vor fi premiaŃi.
the.MPL more good.PL of you.PL will be awarded-a-prize
‘The best of you will receive a prize.’

The determiner inside the partitive PP is also constrained: due to the semantics of the
construction, the partitive complement is always definite. The only exception is the
construction where both DPs are introduced by cardinals, in which case the whole DP has a
‘distributed’ interpretation: unul din zece ‘one (out) of ten’, trei din o mie ‘three (out) of one
thousand.’
In some languages (e.g, English, French), a further constraint bears on the nouns in a
partitive construction: they cannot be different (see (83)d), and normally an overt noun
appears either in the matrix DP or inside the partitive complement, but not in both. This
constraint is grammatical (syntactic) rather than semantic, as proven by the relative
unacceptability of (83)d, which is perfectly interpretable. In Romanian this constraint is less
strong, many people accepting exemples such as (83)c. This difference seems to be due to the
fact that in Romanian partitive PPs are always expressed by a full preposition (dintre/din
‘among’), while in English partitive complements introduced by the functional preposition of
are distinguished from partitive adjuncts, which may appear outside the DP and are
introduced by the ‘full’ (meaningful) preposition among (see (83)e-f). Note that the noun
identity constraint does not apply for partitive adjuncts (see (83)e-f):

(83) a. Multe romane dintre cele aduse de tine mă interesează

many novels(F) of the.FPL brought by you me interest
‘Many novels of those you brought interest me’
b. Multe dintre romanele aduse de tine mă interesează
many of novels-the brought by you me interest
’Many of the novels brought by you interest me’
c. ?(%) Multe romane dintre cărŃile aduse de tine mă interesează
many novels of books-the brought by you me interest
d. *Many novels of the books you brought interest me’
e. Among the books you brought, many novels interest me
f. Many novels among the books you brought interest me

Partitive PPs may also appear outside DPs, usually separated by comma from the rest of the
sentence, sitting in a peripheral position (normally to the left). In this case they are less
constrained. The two nouns may be different, and there is no restriction on the determiners of
the DP expressing ‘the part’:

(84) Dintre cărŃile tale, mi-au plăcut cel mai mult aceste romane / romanele
among books-the yours me.DAT-have.3PL liked the more much these novels / novels-the
’Among your books, I liked most these novels/the novels’

These properties show that these PPs are not partitive PPs moved outside the DP, but a
different type of constituent, although they have a similar semantic import. The lack of
syntactic constraints pleads for an adjunct status. Therefore we will call them partitive
adjuncts.
In other languages, partitive adjuncts are formally distinguished from partitive
complements by being introduced by a lexical (rather specialized) preposition (English
among, French parmi, Italian tra, fra), while partitive complements are introduced by a

30
general adnominal marker – the functional preposition of, French de, Italian di, or the genitive
case in languages with rich case morphology such as Latin. In Romanian, as the examples
above show, the prepositions are the same for DP-internal partitive PPs and partitive adjuncts
– dintre and din. The functional preposition de is no longer used to introduce partitive PPs,
but it had this function in earlier stages of the language (we find this use in XVIth-XVIIth
century texts). We may assume that partitive PPs are always adjuncts in Romanian, or that the
preposition din/dintre can also introduce partitive complements.
The position that partitive PPs occupy inside the DP may be deduced looking at the
examples (82). We can see that they appear inside the complement of D (they may appear
lower than a relative clause or an adjectival ordinal), but higher than prenominal adjectives.
Under the hypothesis that there are intermediate functional layers between D and N, partitive
complements would be attach to one of those layers, presumably to Number, given that they
express a property of pluralities or quantities (the property of being strictly included in a set or
quantity).

It has been shown that most constraints on the determiners which allow partitive PPs follow
from semantics: a partitive complement such as dintre cărŃile tale ‘of your books’ denotes a set
formed by all subsets of cărŃile tale ‘your books’, excluding the whole set (the supremum). Since
this set does not contain a maximal element (a set in which all the other sets are included), it cannot
combine with the iota operator, which selects the maximal element from a set of pluralites.
Therefore definite determiners, which introduce the iota operator, are excluded. However, if a
modifier attached higher than the partitive PP restricts the denotation of the phrase to a set
containing a single individual or set of individuals, then there will be no problem in using definite
determiners. We see this in (82)a and c-e, where the relative clause, the ordinal and the superlative,
respectively (for instance, among all the sub-sets of voi ‘you’ a unique subset may be distinguished
using an ordering relation, which is introduced by the ordinals prim ‘first’ or următor ‘following’).
But why is then (82)b excluded? Here a different constraint is responsible, which is not semantic (as
proven by the well-formedness of (82)a), but rather syntactic: adjectives cannot attach higher than a
partitive complement, while full relative clauses can.
Note however that there are some restrictions, in the case of definite determiners, which cannot be
explained only by semantics: although the restriction provided by a relative clause allows phrases
containing partitives to combine with definite determiners, not all definite determiners are
acceptable in this case, but only the distal determiner acela:
(85) Aceia / *Cei /*Aceştia dintre voi care ştiu o poezie
those.MPL.AUGM / the.MPL / these.MPL.AUGM of you(PL) which know.3PL a poem
să ridice mâna.
SUBJ raise.3PL hand-the
‘Those/*The ones/*These of you who know a poem should raise their hands’

We conclude that partitive PPs are not, in fact, syntactically dependent on the determiner, so
they are not second complements of some determiners. They are probably attached to a
nominal functional layer intermediate between D and the NP.

1.4.5. Complements of equality and difference

Alternative and identity determiners license complements in the form of comparative phrases
(decât ‘than’ for the alternative and ca (şi) for the identity determiner). For details, see section
1.7.

1.5. Quantitative expressions

Looking at the functional categories which sometimes function as Ds and sometimes follow
Ds (type III in the classification under 1.2), we may notice that except for demonstratives and
alternatives, all of them are quantity expressions:

31
(86) a. (aceşti) doi /mulŃi /câŃiva copaci
(these) two /many/a few trees
b. mult /câtva timp
much/some time
c. acest puŃin aur
this little gold

Since quantity phrases can be dominated by Det’s, they are generated in a lower functional
projection. We have seen in 1.2 that depending on the position they occupy with respect to the
alternative, we may distinguish two types of quantity expressions: scalar quantity expressions,
labelled QA (quantitative adjectives) (mult, mulŃi ‘much., many’, puŃin, puŃini ‘few’, destul,
destui ‘enough’), and non-scalar quantity expressions (cardinals and câŃiva ‘a few’), which
respectively precede and follow the alternative. In 1.2 we have introduced the labels Quant1P
and Quant2P for the functional projections to which these types of quantitative expressions
respectively attach. It is also possible to consider that one of these minor functional
projections (presumably Quant2, the lower one) is the projection introducing number, NumP.
We can thus derive the relative order of Ds and quantitive expressions, described in 1.2 (under
type II.2.3)10:

(87) a. [DP [Dcei] [Quant2P/NumP [CardP peste zece] [Quant2/Num´ Quant20/Num0] [NP bucătari]]]]
the over ten cooks
b. [DP [Doricare] [Quant2P/NumP[CardP trei] [Quant2´/Num´Quant2 /Num [NP rude]]]]
0 0

any three relatives

The shorter label QP has been used for something completely different, namely ‘quantifier
phrase’. The term ‘quantitative’ or ‘quantity expression’ must be distinguished from the term
‘quantifier’. ‘Quantifier’ is a semantic notion, referring to linguistic elements translatable as logical
quantifiers such as ∃, ∀, which designate relations between two sets. For example, the D oricare is a
quantifier. Quantifiers are always Ds. Quantitative expressions are not quantifiers: they simply
specify the number of a plurality or the amount of a quantity

The fact that quantity expressions can combine with Ds can be explained as follows: in the
case of co-occurrence, the standard role of determiners, expressing (in)definitude or
quantification, is played by the first determiner, which is a true D. The argument of this
determiner is a plurality of atomic entities (in the case of plurals) or a quantity of matter (in
the case of mass nouns), and quantity expressions refer to the number of that plurality or the
amount of that quantity. Indeed, quantitatives combine with plurals and mass nouns, to the
exclusion of count singulars:

(88) *mult /*câtva om

much / some man

When quantitative expressions appear in contexts characteristic of DPs, but are not preceded
by other determiners, we may assume that they have raised from SpecQuantP/SpecNumP to
SpecDP, making the D-level visible:

(89) a. ?? Copii sunt afară

chidren are outside

10
In the analysis in which Number projects a head, depending on the syntactic implementation one
chooses to adopt, the N raises to Num to receive the number morphology or checks the +pl feature by Agree. For
convenience, we haven’t represented movement in the analyses under (87) and (90).

32
 b. Doi copii sunt afară
two children are outside

(90) DP

CardP D´

D0 Quant2P/NumP
doi
+indef
CardP Quant2/Num´

Quant20/ Num0 NP

tdoi +pl
copii

1.5.1. Adjectival quantitatives

Among quantitative expressions, first we have to distinguish between cardinals and

quantitatives expressing indefinite quantity of mass amounts. While the former are restricted
to nominal projections, the latter have a wider distribution, being able to modify a quantity
argument implicit in verbal predicates (an implicit/cognate object, the time, the distance)
((91)a-c), in degree heads (the differential) (91)d), some prepositions and adverbs ((91)e):

(91) a. Munceşte mult

works much
‘He works a lot’
b. Doarme puŃin
sleeps little
‘He sleeps little’
c. Am mers atâta!
have.1PL walked so-much
‘We walked so much!’
d. ceva mai înalt
some more high
‘somewhat higher’
e. mult peste aşteptări
much above expectations

The inflected quantitatives mult, mulŃi ‘much, many’, puŃin, puŃini ‘little, few’, destul, destui
‘enough’ show in this case an uninflected form, identical to the masculine singular.
Traditionally, these phrases were analyzed as adverbs. Indeed, Romanian, unlike English and
other Romance languages, doesn’t have an adverbial suffix, but uses the uninflected form of
the adjective to build adverbs. However, in the case of quantitative expressions even
languages which have an adverbial suffix don’t use it (see the equivalent of (91)a-b in French
and English):

33
(91´) a. French: Il travaille beaucoup.
English: He works much
b. French: Il dort peu.
English: He sleeps little

Besides, their distribution is not limited to VP-positions, as (91)d-e show, so the term
‘adverb’ is not appropriate anyway. So we will treat them as the same lexical items, QAPs
(‘adjectival quantitatives’), with the peculiar property of having agreement forms whenever
they occur with nouns. We consider that the ‘adjectival’ feature may also explain their
adverbial use, given the fact that Romanian adjectives may be used as adverbs.
Adjectival quantitatives may also occur postnominally, in which case they behave like
ordinary quality adjectives, as we can see from the fact that they may be coordinated with
adjectives.

(92) a. Copacul are frunze puŃine.

tree-the has leaves(F) few.FPL
‘The tree has (only) few leaves’
b. Am petrecut ani mulŃi şi grei în închisoare.
have.1SG spent years(M) many.MPL and hard.MPL in jail
‘I spent many tough years in jail.’

In this position, quantitatives don’t accept a partitive11 reading. This supports the assumption
that partitivity is a feature realized in the functional layers of the DP (possibly at the D-level,
when no overt partitive complement is present), so that the quantitative must occupy the D-
level in order to acquire a partitive reading.

1.5.2. Cardinals

Cardinal numerals in Romanian have some morphological properties with import to their
syntax. First, they have poor or no inflection: doi ‘two’ and its compounds have a feminine
două which does not show the regular feminine ending -e. The other cardinals show no
gender agreement, except for compounds of un ‘one’, for which agreement is optional
(treizeci şi una(F)/unu de zile ‘thirty-three days’) (on the special status of un ‘one’ see 1.5.6.
below). There are no forms for the oblique. Since the enclitic definite article can only attach
to a ϕ-morpheme (appearing either on nouns or on adjectives) we explain the lack of a
definite inflection for cardinals by the lack of (full) agreement. To express definiteness, a
proclitic form of the article must be inserted (see section 1.8), as shown in (92)a. Compare
(92)b, where the indefinite quantitative has full agreement, and as such may take the enclitic
definite article:

(92) a. cele două zile petrecute împreună

the.FPL two.F days(F) spent together
b. multele zile petrecute împreună
many-the.FPL days spent together

All cardinals starting with eleven are compounded; those between 11-19 look like lexical
compounds, having somewhat opaque forms: unsprezece, doisprezece, treisprezece,
paisprezece, cincisprezece, şaisprezece, şaptesprezece, optsprezece, nouăsprezece, formed
with an element spre (which – when used as a preposition - meant ‘over’, but nowadays has
11
A partitive reading obtains when ‘Det NP’ can be paraphrased by ‘Det of the NP’. See the section on
the semantics of determiners for details.

34
only the meaning ‘towards’); the first elements of the compound sometimes have special
forms, distinct from those of the corresponding cardinal: paisprezece ‘fourteen’ but patru
‘four’, şaisprezece ‘sixteen’ but şase ‘six’. In colloquial (fast) speech, these forms are often
reduced (the final string -sprezece is reduced to -şpe): unşpe, doişpe, treişpe, paişpe, cinşpe,
şaişpe, şaptişpe, opt(i)şpe, nouăşpe. Cardinals starting from ‘twenty’ look like complex
syntactic constituents: they contain nouns modified by cardinals, showing plural forms,
agreeing with an indefinite determiner or a cardinal (zece, pl. zeci ‘ten, tens’ (feminine), sută,
pl. sute ‘hundred, hundreds’ (feminine), mie, mii ‘thousand, thousands’ (feminine), milion,
milioane ‘million, millions’ and miliard, miliarde ‘billion, billions’), and the conjunction şi
‘and’12:

(93) a. zece / două zeci /trei zeci

ten two.F tens(F) three tens(F)
‘ten’ ‘twenty’ ‘thirty’
b. o sută / două sute / trei sute
a.F hundred(F) two.F hundreds(F) three hundreds(F)
c. patru zeci şi trei
four tens and three
‘forty three’

However, although these cardinals have the internal structure of phrases, DPs or coordinated
DPs, they behave rather as compounds. For instance, the order of the conjuncts cannot be
reversed:

(94) *trei şi patru zeci

three and four tens

Moreover, it can be shown that they are not heads of DP, but specifiers of QuantP/NumP as
all the other cardinals. One thing that seems to go against this is that all these forms, except
those which end in the conjunction şi followed by cardinals between 1 and 19, require that the
NP be introduced by the dummy preposition functioning as a case marker de ‘of’:

(95) două zeci *(de) pereŃi

two.F tens(F) of walls

But in this structure, unlike in structures where de introduces a modifier or a complement of

the noun, the ϕ-features of the entire group, shown both on the determiner and on the agreeing
verb, are those of the noun and not those of the cardinal:

(96) Aceşti /*Aceste două zeci de pereŃi sunt vopsiŃi /*vopsite de curând
these.MPL/ these.FPL two.F tens(F) of walls(M) are painted.MPL/*painted.FPL of soon
‘These twenty walls are freshly painted’

Moreover, the numeral, although having ϕ-features, usually does not host the suffixal definite
article, so the strong (proclitic) form of the article is inserted in order to express definiteness:
Thus (97)b is more common than (97)a; (97)a is a case of a nominalized cardinal, which will
be examined further below (see section 1.5.3).

12
According to the norm compounds of zece ‘ten’ are written in one word. We presented here the parts
separated for sake of clarity of exposition.

35
(97) a. (?) Suta de poliŃişti n-a reuşit să facă faŃă derbedeilor.
hundred(F)-the of policemen not-has succeeded SUBJ make face hooligans-the.DAT
b. Cei o sută de poliŃişti n-au reuşit să facă faŃă
the.MPL a.FSG hundred(F) of policemen not-have succeeded SUBJ make face
derbedeilor
hooligans-the.DAT
‘The hundred policemen didn’t succeed to hold against the hooligans.’

In (97)b the numeral o sută ‘a/one hundred’ cannot be the nominal head of the DP: a definite
article cannot co-occur with an indefinite article in the extended projection of the same noun;
moreover, the definite and indefinite articles bear different ϕ-features. So we have a clear
indication that complex numerals form a phrase which behaves like a single cardinal inside
the DP, occupying a specifier position.
What is then the explanation for the insertion of de? One possibility is that it is
inserted for case reasons. The agreement mismatch between the cardinal and the noun shows
that in these structures we have two nominal constituents: the cardinal, although appearing in
a specifier position (as shown by the agreement of the determiners with the lexical head, as in
(97)b), still has a N-feature, behaving as a functional noun. Every nominal element must be
structurally licensed by Case, and two nominals cannot be licensed in the same structural
position. Thus, the case marker de is inserted in order to legitimate the second nominal
component of the DP, the one containing its lexical head. Another possibility is that de in
inserted in quantitative constructions as an ‘anti-agreement marker’, where the specifier has
inherent φ-features and does not agree with the head. The use of de as an anti-agreement
marker can also be found in the degree projection (see chapter 6).
Cardinals may also occur postposed to personal pronouns:

(98) a. ei trei
they three
b. noi douăzeci
we twenty

If we analyze pronouns as pro-DPs, they will not contain any QuantP/NumP level, so we will
have to assume that the cardinal here is right-adjoined to the DP. If an empty N is present in
pronouns, either as a null item or as an item moved from N to D via incorporation, it becomes
possible to consider that in these examples cardinals occupy their normal position in
SpecQuantP/NumP.

1.5.3. Nominalized cardinals, quantity nouns and other functional nouns

As we have seen in (97)a, the cardinals zece ‘ten’, sută ‘hundred’, mie ‘thousand’ may also
enter a different construction, in which they function as quantity nouns. In this case, they take
agreeing determiners, even the suffixal article ((99)a-b), and have bare plural uses ((99)c).

(99) a. atâtea sute de copii

so-much.FPL hundreds(F) of children(M)
b. sutele de copii
hundreds(F)-the of children(M)
c. sute de copii
hundreds(F) of children(M)

We consider that in these cases the cardinal is the nominal head of the DP:

36
(100) DP

D NumP

Num NP

N KP

K NumP

-le +pl sute de copii

We will call cardinals in this structure nominalized cardinals.

Note however that nominalized cardinals are not completely parallel to lexical nouns:
predicates don’t s-select them, but their nominal complement; DP-external agreement is
generally established with the complement ((101)a); the genitive plural is marked by a when
no determiner is present, which is typical for cardinals and not for lexical nouns (compare
(101)b to (101)c:

(101) a. Zecile de copaci de pe drum erau desfrunziŃi /*desfrunzite

tens(F)-the of trees(M) of on road were leafless.MPL/ leafless.FPL
‘The tens of trees along the road were leafless.’
b. cărŃile a zeci de copii
books-the a tens of children
'the books of tens of children'
c. cărŃile de copii / unor copii / *a copii
books-the de children / some.GEN children / a children
'(the) children books/some children's books/*the books of children'

This peculiar behavior can be captured by saying that nominalized cardinals are not lexical
nouns, but functional or grammaticalized nouns.
It should thus be stressed that the different syntactic status attributed here to ‘genuine’
cardinals and ‘nominalized’ cardinals is based on their distinct formal properties: presence or
lack of agreement with determiners, (im)possibility of plural forms. Their selectional
properties are identical, and as such they cannot be used as criteria for syntactic structure.
There exist other more or less grammaticalized nouns which can appear with a lexical
NP-complement introduced by de. Among them are various quantitatives (un pic de ‘a bit of’,
o mulŃime de ‘a crowd of, many’) but we can also find qualitative or sortal words: fel ‘sort’
(un fel de ‘a sort of’, ce fel de ‘what sort of’, orice fel de ‘any sort of’, altfel de ‘a different
type of’; in a fused form, based on the demonstrative ast-: astfel de ‘such’), gen ‘kind’, soi
‘sort, kind’. For all of these the external agreement with the complement noun is the rule:

(102) Ce fel de oameni pot / ??poate trăi aici?

what sort of people can.3PL/ can.3SG live here
‘What sort of people can live here?’

So, de is not only specialized for quantity contexts. The generalization, which holds also for
equivalents of de in other languages (engl. of, fr.,sp. de, it. di etc.), is that de is inserted in a
context N_N. The element before de is not necessarily a (lexical) noun but has some N

37
properties, for instance ϕ-features. We saw that numerals inflected for number (zece ‘ten’,
sută ‘hundred’, mie ‘thousand’ etc.) still bear this N feature in Romanian. In other Romance
languages, these numerals have completely lost the N-feature, generalizing the pattern found
with basic numerals (1-19 in Romanian). Significantly, they also show poorer ϕ-features
morphology than their Romanian counterparts:

(103) a. due cento (*di) ragazze Italian

two hundred(M) ( of) girls(F)
b. tres mil (*de) niñas Spanish
three thousand ( of) girls(F)

A common property of structures in (+N) de (+N), when the first element is a quantitative, is
that when the second part is left-dislocated, de no longer appears (for this type of left-
dislocation, see the following section, 1.6):

(104) a. Fete au venit treizeci.

girls have come thirty
b. *De fete au venit treizeci
of girls have come thirty
c. *Fete au venit treizeci de.
girls have come thirty of

When the first N is indisputably lexical and de is a complement introducing preposition, de

cannot be dropped. Compare (105)a, where the first N is a quantity noun, presumably
functional, to (105)b:

(105) a. (*de) vin am băut un pic

of wine have.1SG drunk a bit
b. *(de) Rembrandt am văzut câteva tablouri
of Rembrandt have.1SG seen a few pictures

This suggests that de found in quantitative constructions is not a true preposition. It could be
the realization of the Quant head, with the quantitative expression sitting in its specifier. This
would allow extraction of the NP following it, unlike prepositions, which are islands for
extraction in Romanian. We may assume that when the phrase following de is moved, de
(more precisely the X0 constituent which is normally phonetically realized as de) remains with
an empty sister, and since it is a weak element, cliticizing on its complement, it would not be
realized when this complement is empty. It is a well-known property of clitics that they
cannot cliticize to empty categories.
It thus appears that only complements of functional nouns expressing quantity, as well
as of a number of quantificational determiners (as we will see in the following section, 1.6)
allow this type of dislocation. This indicates that quantity nouns rely on a syntactic structure
that is different from that of complement-taking lexical nouns.
Grammaticalized nouns expressing quantity, which we will call quantity nouns, show
an intermediate behaviour between complex cardinals and ordinary nouns taking a de+NP
complement. This can be seen by contrasting quantity nouns with group nouns (or
collectives). MulŃime is usually a quantity noun, but may also function as a group noun
(meaning ‘crowd’). Grămadă is normally a quantity noun when applied to animates (as a
concrete noun it means ‘heap’), and droaie is a quantity noun everywhere (all three are used
to express a big number). There also exist quantity nouns specialized for mass nouns: un pic,
un strop ‘a little’ etc. Nouns like grup ‘group’ and most collectives are group nouns rather

38
than quantity nouns. The following properties distinguish quantity nouns from group nouns,
and show that they behave like compound cardinals of the type două zeci de N ‘two tens of
N’:
(i) Quantity nouns which take plurals require plural agreement on the verb, group
nouns normally determine the agreement themselves:

(106) a. o grămadă de elevi au /*a căzut la examen

a lot of pupils have / has fallen at exam
‘A lot of pupils failed the exam.’
b. un grup de elevi m-a / ??m-au vizitat ieri
a group of pupils me-has/ me-have visited yesterday
‘A group of pupils visited me yesterday’

(ii) The determiner of quantity nouns cannot be inflected for the oblique case, so the
functional prepositions/case markers la for dative and a for genitive must be inserted. This
phenomenon, also encountered with compound cardinals, may be explained if we assume that
this determiner is not the D of the matrix DP, so that the quantity noun occupies a specifier
position (SpecQuantP) (in (107)a the natural reading of the sentence excludes the use of
mulŃime as a group noun):

(107) a. *Am dat note bune unei mulŃimi de elevi

have.1SG given marks good a.DAT lot of pupils
b. Am dat note bune la o mulŃime de elevi
have.1SG given marks good la a lot of pupils
‘I gave good marks to a lot of pupils’
c. ??Am dat note bune unei sute de elevi
have.1SG given marks good a.DAT hundred of pupils
d. Am dat note bune la o sută de elevi.
have.1SG given marks good la a hundred of pupils
‘I gave good marks to a hundred pupils’
e. *adăugarea unui pic de zahăr
adding-the a.GEN bit of sugar
f. adăugarea a un pic de zahăr
adding-the a a bit of sugar

(iii) Left-dislocation, which we have already seen for quantity nouns ((105)), is
impossible with group nouns:

(108) a. Fete am întâlnit o mulŃime

girls have.1SG met a lot
b. *Fete am întâlnit un grup
girls have.1SG met a group

(iv) Quantity nouns do not have plural forms, whereas group nouns do:

(109) a. *Din uzină ieşeau grămezi de muncitori

from factory get-out.IMPERF.3PL heaps of workers
b. Din uzină ieşeau grupuri de muncitori
from factory get-out. IMPERF.3PL groups of workers

(v) Quantity nouns, at least some of them, allow adverbial uses which, as we have
seen, characterize quantity expressions. This is another indication that they have lost their
nominal status except for morphology, being reanalysed as quantitative expressions:

39
(110) a. un pic mai mare
a bit more big
‘a bit bigger’
b. A dormit o grămadă
has slept a heap
‘He slept a lot’

On the other hand, quantity nouns are distinguished from compound cardinals by allowing
agreeing determiners - i.e. other determiners than the indefinite article, which agree with the
quantity noun and function as determiners of the entire DP. In this case, they may also have
case morphology. This shows that in this case quantity nouns are not specifiers (like in
(107)b), but nominal heads taking the lexical noun as a complement (the structure in (100)):

(111) a. droaia asta de copii

lot(F)-the this.F of children
b. droaiei ăsteia de copii
lot(F)-the.DAT this.F.DAT of children

Nominalized cardinals, although expressing quantity and not groups, are distinguished from
quantity nouns by having plural (see (101)). They also allow agreeing determiners, unlike
non-nominalized cardinals. So they are more similar to lexical nouns than quantity nouns.

Fractional numerals behave like nominalized cardinals ((112)). Their nominal status is also
shown by morphology: they are derived from cardinals by means of an abstract nominal suffix
((113)):

(112) (cele) două treimi de zahăr

the.FPL two.F thirds(F) of sugar
(113) şase → şesime
six sixth (fractional)
înalt → înălŃime
high highness

Cardinals may also function as regular nouns, in various uses: in mathematics, as names of
numbers, with marks, numbers of buildings, in card games. In this case, they have not only the
syntax, but also the morphology of regular nouns (see the definite declension in (114)a):

(114) a. Treiul e numărul meu norocos

three-the is number-the my lucky
‘Three is my lucky number’
b. Mi-a dat un patru
me.CL.DAT-has given a four
‘(The teacher) gave me a four’
c. łi-am dat un patru negru
you.CL.DAT-have.1SG given a four black
‘I gave you a black four’

1.5.4. Quantity expressions always occupying the D layer (D-quantitatives)

We have seen in section 1.2 that not all quantity expressions may be preceded by a
determiner: some quantitatives are of type I, always occupying the D position: cât, câŃi ‘how
much/many’, oricât, oricâŃi ‘any number/amount of’, atât, atâŃi ‘so/that/as much/many’. We
understand this behaviour by looking at their meaning and even at their form: their semantics
contains a quantifier component alongside the quantitative feature ((115)), and their form also

40
shows composition of D-elements (a- anaphoric, ori- free-choice, Ø interrogative-relative, see
1.10 for details) with the same (c)ât which may be taken to represent the quantity feature. The
only member of this paradigm which may appear in a post-D position, being of type III (post-
D which may also function as a D), is câtva, câŃiva ‘some’. (We should however notice that a
transparent morphology characterizes only a part of D-quantitatives; others are non-
transparent: niŃel, ceva13.)

(115) cât : ?x , x=the number/amount of N(um)P

oricât: ∀ x, x=the number/amount of N(um)P
câtva: ∃x, x=the number/amount of N(um)P
atât: x, x=the number/amount of N(um)P (x either contextually identified, by anaphor or
deixis, or introduced by an equative)

These quantitatives have in common with adjectival quantitatives the fact that they can appear
outside the DP: they appear with verbs ((116)a), but with degree words they must be
introduced by a preposition, behaving like nominals ((116)b) (only cât has a special structure
in which it attaches before the degree head mai ‘more’ without a preposition ((116)c)), and
with adjectives and adverbs they may function as degree words, in which case they require the
insertion of de before the adjective, presumably due to their N feature ((116)d):

(116) a. Cât a vorbit?

how-much has spoken
‘How long did he spoke?’
b. cu atât mai bine
with so-much more good
‘so much better’
c. cât mai departe
how-much more far
‘the furthest possible’
d. atât de deştept
so-much of intelligent
‘so/as intelligent’
e. niŃel mai departe
a-little more far
‘a little bit further’

We conclude that these phrases are not simple D-heads: typically functional heads select only
one type of lexical category (for example, Ds such as the articles, demonstratives, non-
quantitative indefinites select only (N), auxiliaries select only (V), etc.). The wider
distribution of quantitative phrases is due to their +quant feature. Such expressions can be
uniformily treated as QAPs, which when appearing in SpecDP, make the D-level visible.
One wh- word, namely ce, may appear in the Spec position of the quantity head de. It
is then interpreted as an exclamative quantitative:

(117) Ce de oameni au venit!

what of people have come
‘How many people came !’

13
The latter shows composition with ce, but ce is not quantitative in other contexts, except for oarece,
which is a untypical quantitative by the fact that is restricted to nominal projections.

41
1.5.5. Quantity expressions in predicative position

All quantity expressions (cardinals, adjectival quantitative expressions, D-quantitatives) have

in common the possibility of appearing in predicative position (normally post-copular, but
exceptionally also in secondary predications, see (118)b):

(118) a. Eram zece / mulŃi / atâŃia

were.1PL ten / many/ so-many
'We were te/many/that many'
b. Am plecat zece şi ne-am întors doar trei
have.1PL left ten and REFL-have.1PL returned only three
'We were ten when we left and only three when we returned'

In this case, the presence of an empty N is quite doubtful: no nominal content needs to be
recovered, and in the case of secondary predication ((118)b) the presence of an overt noun is
not fully grammatical (e.g. ?Am plecat zece persoane ‘have.1PL left ten persons’).

1.5.6. Note on the word un ‘a, one’

Traditionally, the indefinite article (un, o) is analyzed as a cardinal when it is stressed,

highlighting the number (for instance, when it is used in answering questions about
cardinality or when it bears a contrastive focus of correction, contrasting with a cardinal).
However, we do not treat un/o as a cardinal, but we include it in the class of determiners,
because it can never be preceded by determiners:

(119) a. cele două cărŃi

the two books
b. *cea o carte / *una carte
the one book / one-the book

In order to express (119)b, Romanian may use the adjective singur ‘only’. The impossibility
of (119)b is not due to semantics: in other languages, words for ‘un’ may be preceded by
determiners – e.g. Latin or English:

(120) a. ille unus filius Latin

that one son
b. the one God English

1.6. Common properties of quantitatives and some indefinite determiners

(i) Sensitivity to number

As already mentioned (1.1), some determiners are sensitive to the number of their nominal
complement. This property characterizes not only quantitative expressions, but also most
indefinite and quantificational Ds. Only definite determiners, alternatives and wh- determiners
are not sensitive to number.
Among determiners sensitive to number, we may distinguish the following selectional
classes:
(1) + count singulars, with restrictions on the plural: the indefinites un ‘a(n)’, vreun ‘a,
any, some’, niciun ‘no’ do not take plural in the direct case; they are compatible with the
plural only in the oblique (e.g. unor/vreunor prieteni ‘of/to some friends’) or when no
overt noun is present: niciunii, vreunii (for the difference between unii without an overt

42
 N, which is a plural form of the indefinite article, and adnominal unii, which is a partitive
determiner, see 1.3.2 above); the distributive universal fiecare ‘each, every’ may take,
besides count singulars, plurals introduced by cardinals;
(2) + plurals: cardinals, the indefinites unii ‘(partitive) some’, diverşi ‘various’
(3) + mass: niŃel ‘a little’, atâta ‘so/as/that much’
(4) +mass and plurals: nişte ‘some, s’m’, the quantitatives cât, câŃi ‘how much/many’,
ceva, câtva, câŃiva ‘some, a few’, mult, mulŃi ‘much, many’, puŃin, puŃini ‘little, few’,
atât, atâŃi ‘that/as much/many’, destul, destui ‘enough’
(5) +count singulars and plurals: the interrogative-relatives ce ‘what’, care ‘which’;
oricare, orice ‘any’, while generally take the singular, also allow the plural

(ii) Left-dislocation
A property which generally characterizes quantitatives, but not exclusively (see (121)b-c and
(104)a, (105)a, (108)a), is the fact that they allow left-dislocation of their nominal
complement (a bare plural or mass noun):

(121) a. CărŃi am găsit zece /multe /câteva

books have.1SG found ten /many /a few
‘I found ten/many/a few books / As for books, I found ten/many/a few’
b. Jocuri ştiu altele
games know.1SG others.FPL.AUGM
‘I know other games / As for games, I know others’
c. Perii n-am luat niciuna.
brushes not-have.1SG taken none.FSG.AUGM
‘I didn’t take any brushes / As for brushes, I didn’t take any’

Besides quantitatives, this property is found with the indefinite determiners unul ‘one’,
niciunul ‘no, no one’, vreunul ‘some, any’ and with the alternative alt ‘other’.
A remarkable property of structures with left-dislocated NPs is the relative
independence of the separated elements. Thus, the structure is not distinguished from the
structure without dislocation only by a reordering: the NFE left in place shows the
‘augmented’ or pre-[Ne] forms, if it has any ((122)); if a NFE doesn’t allow [Ne], it cannot
appear in this structure, even if it has a quantitative meaning, of the same type with that of
quantitatives that allow this structure (123); the dummy-preposition de which intervenes in
some cases between the quantitative and the NP is missing in dislocated structures, as we
already noticed (see (104) above, and (124)), which is another indication that the NFE left in
place behaves as when followed by [Ne], since in that case too de is not present ((124)c); even
the number of the NP may be different from that of the determiner (when the determiner is
singular), a situation that is, of course, excluded when the determiner precedes the noun (see
(121)c above, and (125)).

(122) a. Am cumpărat alte discuri.

have.1SG bought other records
‘I bought other records’
b. Discuri am cumpărat altele.
records have.1SG bought other.FPL.AUGM
c. Am cumpărat altele [Ne].
have.1SG bought other.FPL.AUGM
‘I bought others.’

43
(123) a. CărŃi am luat *nişte / câteva.
books have.1SG taken s'm / a few
‘As for books, I took some’
b. *Nişte [Ne]/ Câteva [Ne] sunt pe raft.
s'm a few are on shelf
‘Some are on the shelf’
(124) a. Aşteptăm douăzeci de invitaŃi
wait.1PL twenty of guests
‘We are waiting for twenty guests’
b. InvitaŃi aşteptăm douăzeci
guests wait.1PL twenty
‘As for guest, we are waiting for twenty’
c. Aşteptăm douăzeci [Ne]
wait.1PL twenty
‘We’re waiting for twenty’
(125) a. Am pierdut numai o carte
have.1SG lost only a book
‘I lost only one book’
b. CărŃi am pierdut numai una.
books have.1SG lost only one.FSG.AUGM
‘As for books, I lost only one’

Based on these facts we could conclude that these structures are based on [Ne] and not on
movement. So this wouldn’t be an instance of dislocation, but rather of a base-generated topic
N(um)P and a [Ne] identified via the usual mechanisms. However, the construction also has
some properties characteristic of movement. The structure is limited to objects and postverbal
subjects, in addition to showing the standard island constraints:

(126) a. BăieŃi cântă doar trei

boys sing only three
‘As for boys, only three are singing’
b. ?? BăieŃi doar trei cântă
boys only three sing
c. *Muzee am intrat în zece.
museums have.1SG entered in ten
d. *Articole ştiu pe cineva care a trimis trei
articles know.1SG DOM somebody who has sent three
‘(As for) articles, I know somebody who has sent three’

The ungrammaticality of (126)b-c can be explained by the impossibility of extracting from a

preverbal subject or a PP.
Moreover, the topic must be linked to a [Ne], it cannot be associated to an overt noun:

(127) *Fete am văzut pe Maria şi Cristina

girls have.1SG seen DOM Maria and Cristina
Intended meaning: ‘As for girls, I saw Maria and Cristina’

So we conclude that these cases show a particular type of chain after all14. This construction
looks like a clitic-doubling structure where the doubling pronominal is a pro-N instead of a
pro-DP (a personal pronoun). We will not decide here whether the dependency involved in

14
It is interesting to notice that the same phenomenon, namely the independence of the dislocated
elements, with the trace of the left-dislocated NP behaving as [Ne], is found in other languages which have NP
left-dislocation, such as Hungarian and German.

44
these constructions is to be represented via syntactic movement or without movement (for
instance, via an Agree mechanism).
If argumental bare nouns are analyzed as containing a null D (see chapter 2), then the
topicalization pattern in (128) may involve the same type of dislocation:

(128) a. Prosoape avem.

towels have.1SG
b. Vin încă mai este
wine still more is
‘There is still wine’

As we have shown in 1.5.3, this construction also appears with quantity nouns:

(129) a. Doctori am văzut o mulŃime.

doctors have.1SG seen a lot
‘I saw a lot of doctors.’
b. Am văzut o mulŃime [Ne]
have.1SG seen a lot
‘I saw a lot’
c. ?? Doctori am vorbit cu o mulŃime
doctors have.1SG spoken with a lot

If NP left dislocation doesn’t depend on the syntactic properties of the determiner other than
the allowance of [Ne], we have to explain why it is limited to only some determiners. The
answer may be found in semantics: implying topicalization of the descriptive content of the
DP (realized as a N(um)P), it is allowed only when no definite set is available for
topicalization. That is why determiners which are always partitive (in the sense that they
imply a given set), such as the distributive universal, are not allowed:

(130) (*CandidaŃi) am examinat (pe) fiecare

candidates have.1SG examined (DOM) each

(iii) The possibility of having approximation modifiers characterizes, as we have seen

in 1.4, quantitatives as well as universal and negative quantifiers (toŃi ‘all’, fiecare ‘every,
each’, oricare, orice ‘(free-choice) any’, niciun ‘no’) (see examples (76), repeated below).

(131) a. aproape trei ani

almost three years
b. aproape toŃi portocalii
almost all orange-trees-the
c. aproape orice zi
almost any day
d. aproape nicio plăcere
almost no pleasure

These similarities between quantitatives and some indefinite and quantificational determiners
led some researches to put them in the same class (a category which was labeled QP)15. We
consider that they should not be treated on a par, because of the important distributional
difference presented in the previous section (1.5): only quantitatives can appear in contexts
15
In the languages for which this structure was proposed, such as Italian, French and Dutch, there was
another salient common property: the pronominalization of their NP-complement, in certain positions, in the
form of a special clitic, it. ne, fr. en, du. er. We take this clitic to simply represent a pro-N(um)P.

45
other than noun projections. The theory of functional projections requires thus to attribute
them a special status. In addition, only they may be preceded by other determiners (see
section 1.2). On the other hand, words such as fiecare ‘each, every’, alt(ul) ‘another (one)’,
nişte ‘some’ are restricted to nominal projections, behaving normally from the point of view
of the theory of functional projections. Most, if not all of the similarities presented here (the
combination with approximation modifiers, the sensitivity to number and perhaps even the
left-dislocation property) have a semantic explanation.

1.7. The alternative and the identity determiner

1.7.1. The alternative

Among the NFEs which may follow determiners (type III in 1.2), the alternative (alt)
constitutes a special case. First, it is an exception in this class: all the other items in it – except
for the demonstratives (and perhaps the identity determiner, if it really belongs here, vide
infra) – are quantitatives, as we have seen. Secondly, its position with regard to quantitatives
is variable, depending on the type of the quantitative: it follows scalar quantitatives but
precedes all other quantitatives:

(132) a. (multe) alte (?multe) întâmplări

many other many events
b. (aceste) (*trei/câteva) alte (trei/câteva) întâmplări
these three/a-few other three/a-few events

Third, unlike in languages such as English and French, alt may function as a D, appearing
without another determiner. In this case, it functions as an indefinite determiner:

(133) altă poveste Romanian

*(an)other story English
*(une) autre histoire French

However, it may also be preceded by the indefinite article. The meaning differences between
alt+NP and un+alt+NP are hard to grasp.
In the plural, alt cannot be preceded by indefinite determiners (*nişte alŃi oameni
‘some other people’, *unor alte zile ‘some.OBL other days’).
As a D, it shows the case inflection typical for Ds. Its ‘augmented’ inflection (i.e. the
forms used in the context +[Ne]) as well as that of the indefinite un ‘a, one’ and its
compounds show the peculiarity of having forms of the definite declension in the direct case
(see 1.3 for discussion).
Another common property of un and alt is that they may use the feminine singular
augmented form with a neuter interpretation (una ‘one thing’, alta ‘another thing’). This use
is generally restricted to cases of parallelism and to idioms:

(134) a. Una este să ştii să foloseşti programe făcute de alŃii, alta

one.FSG.AUGM is SUBJ know.2SG SUBJ use.2SG programs made by others other.FSG.AUGM
este să ştii să scrii tu unul.
is SUBJ know.2SG SUBJ write.2SG you one.MSG.AUGM
‘To know how to use programs made by others is one thing, to be able to write one yourself,
that’s a different thing.’
b. Vorbeau de una, de alta
speak.IMPERF.3PL of one.FSG.AUGM of other.FSG.AUGM
‘They were talking about all sorts of things.’

46
 c. asta e una la mână. Apoi/în plus
this is one.FSG.AUGM at hand. Then/in addition
‘that’s one thing. Moreover, …’

This phenomenon is also encountered with demonstratives (see 1.8.2).

Alt may function as a predicate, in which case the augmented forms must be used:

(135) Casa asta e alta /*altă.

house-the this is other.FSG.AUGM/ other.FSG
‘This house is another one.’

This may indicate that alt alone cannot be used as a predicate, but must be followed by an N
(being a functional nominal element), and the entire construction alt+NP may then function as
a predicate. However it is also possible to consider that alt has generalized the augmented
inflection when it is an adjective – we would then consider these form to be ‘strong forms’ of
sorts. Indeed, when it is followed by a complement of difference, alt may also appear in
postnominal position, like an adjective, and then it has the augmented forms ((136)a); note
that an appositive structure is unlikely, since an overt N is impossible after alt ((136)b), and
the meaning is restrictive:

(136) a. Vom promova cunoaşterea limbilor străine altele decât

will.1PL promote knowledge-the languages-the.GEN foreign other.AUGM than
engleza.
English-the
‘Will promote the knowledge of foreign languages other than English.’
b. *Vom promova cunoaşterea limbilor străine alte limbi decât
will.1PL promote knowledge-the languages-the.GEN foreign other languages than
engleza
English-the

With the definite determiners, the alternative shows compound forms: cel ‘the’ + alt →
celălalt, ăst (acest) ‘this’ + alt → ăstălalt, ăla ‘that’ + alt → ălălalt, ălalalt, ăllalt (except
celălalt, all these forms are sub-standard).
Indefinite pro-DPs (type (ii) in 1.2) may be prefixed by alt: altcineva, altceva
‘somebody/something else’. We speak here of compounding because this alt- is uninflected
((137)) and does not appear in its expected position, that is after D ((138)):

(137) direct: altcineva

alt-somebody
oblique: alt(*ui)cuiva
alt(OBL)-somebody.OBL
(138) a. altcineva
alt-somebody
b. oricare/niciun alt om
any /no other man
c. oricare/niciun altul
any /no other.MSG.AUGM

However, given the fact that alt may occupy the D position, we may analyze these forms as
fused forms D+N where the grammatical N bearing the feature +/- animate is realized as
-cineva or -ceva. Indeed, the forms altcineva and altceva may appear after indefinite pronouns
(translatable in English as ‘else’):

47
(139) a. nimic altceva
nothing alt-something
‘nothing else’
b. orice altceva
whatever alt-something
‘anything else’
c. ce altceva
what alt-something
‘what else’
d. nimeni altcineva
nobody alt-somebody
‘nobody else’

Since pronouns never take an overt noun, we may analyze these constructions as containing
two DPs. Alternatively, we may say that in this case pronouns are simply Ds, and their N part
is realized in the forms -ceva (for inanimate N) and -cineva (for +human N), fused with the
alternative.
Animate indefinite pro-DPs may also be followed by alt, which receives then the
augmented inflection:

(140) nimeni altul

nobody other.MSG.AUGM

When it is not used as a D, but rather adjectivally, meaning ‘different’, alt may be modified
by (intensifier and) approximation phrases such as cu totul ‘wholly’ and aproape ‘almost’:

(141) a. Aceasta este o cu totul altă chestiune

this is a wholly other matter
‘This is a whollyd different matter.’
b. Ce s-a schimbat, e aproape altul!
what REFL-has changed is almost other.MSG.AUGM
‘How much he has changed, he is almost a different person!’

As in other languages, the alternative is used to form the reciprocal pronoun, in a construction
where it is associated with the indefinite unul ‘one’:

(142) Strigă unii la alŃii

shout-3PL ones.MPL.AUGM to others.MPL.AUGM
‘They are shouting to one another’

We may notice here that this construction is based on the so-called ‘internal reading’ of the
alternative, which will be presented below, in the paragraph ‘Complements of equality and
difference’ (see discussion above (152)).

1.7.2. The identity determiner

The nominal functional element expressing identity is acelaşi ‘the same’. For some speakers
this item cannot be preceded by determiners, so that it is a D, while for others it may be
preceded by the indefinite article un (see (143), taken from the Internet), and (more
marginally) by short demonstratives – thus, it appears to be of type III in 1.2.

48
(143) % CandidaŃii nu pot susŃine o aceeaşi disciplină la probe diferite
candidates-the not can sustain a same discipline at tests different
‘Candidates cannot choose the same discipline for different tests.’

Unlike the identity adjectives of English and French, acelaşi never takes a definite article, but
functions itself as a D:

(144) Am ajuns în acelaşi loc

have.1PL arrived in same place
‘We arrived in the same place’

The association of acelaşi with a D-feature is expected given its meaning: it expresses identity
with a previously introduced discourse referent.
Like alt, it may also appear as a predicate:

(145) FeŃele de la bar sunt mereu aceleaşi.

faces-the from pub are always same
‘The faces from the pub are always the same’

Often in the predicative position the phrase unul şi acelaşi ‘one and the same’ is used to
predicate identity about a group (a conjunction of DPs or even a plural DP).

(146) a. Autorul acestei cărŃi şi editorul sunt unul şi acelaşi

author-the this.GEN book and editor-the are one.AUGM and same
‘The author of this book and the publishing editor are one and the same’
b. Filmele de care vorbim sunt unul şi aceleaşi
movies-the about which speak.1PL are one.AUGM and same
‘The movies we are talking about are one and the same’

This complex expression may appear, more rarely, in argumental positions with an overt
noun, functioning as a determiner:

(147) Una şi aceeaşi persoană a regizat şi a finanŃat acest film

one.AUGM and same person has directed and has financed this movie
‘The same person directed and financed this movie.’

Acelaşi has a peculiar morphology: it is a compound of acela, the long form of the distal
demonstrative and an invariable particle -şi. The inflection appears on the demonstrative
element, before -şi (aceeaşi FSG., aceleaşi FPL., aceluiaşi MSG.OBLIQUE etc.)

1.7.3. Complements of equality and difference

Alternatives and the identity determiner introduce an additional argument, the argument of the
component of their meaning ‘different from x’ or ‘identical to x’. In Romanian as in many
other languages, including English, this argument, if it is realized, takes the form of a
comparative phrase, introduced, for alternatives, by decât ‘than’, the marker of inequality, and
for the identity determiner by ca or ca şi ‘as’, the marker of equality. This is another fact that
distinguishes alternatives and the identity determiner from their adjectival (near) synonyms
diferit ‘different’ and identic ‘identical’, besides their properties characteristic for
determiners.

49
(148) a. Şi altcineva decât el ar putea face această treabă.
and alt-somebody than him would can do this job
‘Somebody other than him could also do this job.’
b. E acelaşi film ca cel pe care l-am văzut
is same movie as the DOM which it.CL.ACC-have.1PL seen
‘It’s the same movie as the one we saw.’

Thus we may notice that language may use the same means to express equality and difference
of degree and identity and difference between entities. In both cases, the argument – the
entity, or the degree – may be expressed by relativization (an operator-movement or wh-
movement construction), and this relativized clause may contain elided material, based on a
parallelism with the matrix clause. Sometimes delition is obligatory (here, in the c and d
examples):

(149) a. Am văzut acelaşi film ca cel pe care l-am văzut sâmbătă

have.1PL seen same movie as (the DOM which it.CL.ACC-have.1PL seen) Saturday
‘We saw the same movie as Saturday’
b. Ai adus alte pahare decât cele pe care Ńi-am spus eu să
have.2SG brought other glasses than (the DOM which) you.CL.DAT-have.1SG told I (SUBJ
le aduci
them CL.ACC bring)
‘You brought other glasses than I told you’
c. E la fel de scump ca Opi este ti de scump în centru16.
is as-much of expensive as ( is of expensive) in center
‘It’s as expensive as in the center’
d. Paharele astea sunt mai mari de[cât]i îmi plac mie pahare ti de
glasses-the these are more big of-[how-much]i me.CL.DAT like me.DAT (glasses ti of
mari
big)
‘These glasses are bigger than I like’

The realization of this argument is blocked with definite alternatives (celălalt and the sub-
standard forms ăstălalt, ălălalt etc.): this is because in this case the argument is already
realized via the anaphoric component of the definite alternative: ‘different from it/them’:

(150) *ceilalŃi decât cei pe care îi cunoscuseşi

the-others than the.MPL DOM which them.CL.ACC had-known.2SG

Following a common pattern of symmetrical predicates, acelaşi admits the following two
constructions in predicative position: it may be predicated about a group or it may be
predicated about one of the arguments and take a second argument introduced by cu ‘with’:

(151) a. Pozele astea şi cele pe care mi le-ai arătat rândul

photos-the these and the DOM which me.CL.DAT them.CL.ACC-have.2SG shown turn-the
trecut sunt aceleaşi
past are same
‘These pictures and the one you showed me last time are the same.’
b. Pozele acestea sunt aceleaşi cu cele pe care mi le-ai
photos-the these are same with the DOM which me.CL.DAT them.CL.ACC-have.2SG

16
A special property of ca is that it takes nominal expressions, so that the ellipsis of the verb is obligatory
when it introduces a degree (compare (149)c to (149)a). With an overt verb, cât ‘how-much’ (which with the
preposition de gives the form decât ‘than’) or cum ‘as, how’ are used.

50
 arătat rândul trecut.
shown turn-the past
‘These photos are the same as those which you showed me last time.’

When the sentence expresses a plurality of events/situations, identity and alternative

determiners may be used without presupposing an additional argument: they may express a
relation not between the referent of the DP and another referent, but between the values the
DP has for each event: for example, let’s say that the events are e1, e2,… en, and the DP has a
variable reading, associating a different participant to each event: x1, x2,… xn. Then the
identity or difference relations may hold between these participants: x1=x2=…=xn, or, for any
xi, xj, xi ≠ xj.17 (This is the so-called ‘internal reading’ of words for identity and difference.)

(152) a. Lucia şi Sonia au acelaşi profesor Distributive

Lucia and Sonia have same teacher
‘Lucia and Sonia have the same teacher’
b. Profesorul predă în fiecare an alt curs.
teacher-the teaches in ever year other lecture
‘The teacher gives different lectures every year’
c. Dumitru poartă întotdeauna aceeaşi cămaşă. Adverbial quantification
Dumitru wears always same shirt
‘Dumitru always wears the same shirt’
d. Acelaşi om a pictat tablourile şi a proiectat mobilele Conjunction of events
same person has painted canvas-the and has designed furniture-the
‘The same person painted the canvas and designed the furniture.’

Like comparative complements of degree words, the comparative complements of identity

and difference always follow the noun (see (148)-(149))18.

1.8. Definite determiners

1.8.1. The definite article

The definite article has the peculiarity of appearing either as an independent word or as a
suffix.
The suffixal form appears when the D position is followed either by a lexical noun, or
by an adjectival phrase, and is attached as an inflection to the noun or to the adjective
respectively. The noun must be strictly DP-initial, while the adjective may be preceded by
degree expressions and other modifiers, except for the degree head mai:

(153) a. copilul frumos

child-the beautiful
b. frumosul copil
beautiful-the child
c. atât de frumoasa fată
such of beautiful-the girl

17
For the difference relation, this reading is also found with the adjective diferit ‘different’. In fact, in
some cases this adjective gets more easily this reading than alt.
18
A general rule can be formulated for all these cases, for Romanian and other related head-initial
languages : when a functional item, placed as such to the left of the lexical head, or a left-hand adjunct takes an
additional potentially heavy complement, this complement must undergo right extraposition, or directly attach to
the right of the functional projection, so that it appears on the right of the lexical projection.

51
Morphologically, the article shows a high degree of fusion with its host, looking more like an
inflection than like a clitic. This is reflected in the following phenomena (which may be seen
in the table below): (a) the form of the article sometimes depends on the inflectional type of
the host: the masculine singular N.A. is -l for consonantal stems but -le for -e stems (see
(154)a-c), and it may be either -a or -l for -ă stems, depending on the word (see (154)d); the
masculine singular oblique is -lui for all masculines except -ă stems, which have the form -ei
(replacing the stem vowel -ă) (cp. (154)a-c to (154)d); (b) the stem is modified when the
article is added: -ă falls before -a (see (154)d-e), an -u- is added in the consonantal stems (see
(154)a); in the spoken language, the masculine singular N.A. -l preceded by this -u- as well as
by an unstressed -u- which is part of the noun’s stem is normally not pronounced, so that -u
rather than -l functions as the definiteness marker (see (154)a); however, -l is preserved after
-ă; the masculine -ă stems change this vowel into -e- before the oblique singular article -i (see
(154)d).

(154)
DIRECT (NOM.ACC) DIRECT OBLIQUE SG. OBLIQUE PL.
SG. PL.
(a) masc. in cons. and moş-u-(l) moşi-i moş-u-lui moşi-lor
in accented vowels metro-u-(l) metro-u-lui
(b) u-masc. maistru-(l) maiştri-i maistru-lui maiştri-lor
(c) e-masc. cîine-le cîini-i cîine-lui cîini-lor
(d) ă-masc. pap(ă)-a, but papi-i pap(ă)-e-i papi-lor
tată-l taŃi-i tat-e-i / tată-lui taŃi-lor
(e) ă-fem. fat(ă)-a fete-le fete-i fete-lor
(f) e-fem carte-a cărŃi-le cărŃi-i cărŃi-lor

To this we may add facts that are not reflected in writing: word-final -i is pronounced as a
semivowel, but becomes fully vocalic before -l-, while the combination -i-i- notes in fact a
single vowel -i-. We conclude that we may speak of a special inflection, the ‘definite
inflection’.
An independent form cel, which is DP-initial, is inserted when the D position is
followed by cardinals, empty nouns and the comparative degree head mai:

(155) a. cei doi copii

the two children
b. cei mai frumoşi copii
the more beautiful children
‘the most beautiful children’
c. cei [Ne] frumoşi
the.MPL beautiful.MPL
‘the beautiful ones’
d. Studiile de Chopin şi cele [Ne] de Liszt
studies-the of Chopin and the.FPL of Liszt
‘the studies of Chopin and of Liszt’
e. cei [Ne] care vor
the.MPL which want.3PL

Two types of analysis have been proposed for the suffixation of the definite article: a
morphological lowering rule, similar to the English I-to-V lowering, and raising of the noun
or the AP to D or SpecDP, respectively. We will present both analyses, without deciding
between them here.

52
 The lowering rule which can account for the distribution of the definite feature may be
formulated as follows:

(156) -L, which is generated under D, lowers to the head of its complement, if this head
contains or is adjacent to an overt (full)ϕ-morpheme; otherwise, the strong form cel is inserted
in D.

The suffixation of the definite article is blocked with cardinals because they don’t have
a (full)ϕ-morpheme, as we have seen (see 1.5.2). Degree words don’t block the suffixation
because they form a single constituent with the adjective. Mai is special because in its case D
takes as a complement the DegP and not the NP, forming the superlative. Inside the DegP-
complement Deg is the head of the complement of D, and since it does not have the required
ϕ-morpheme it blocks the lowering of [+def]. As for prenominal adjectives, if they are
analyzed as specifiers of minor functional projections (see chapter 6), their head F will offer
an appropriate place for lowering, given that adjectives, which immediately precede this head,
end in an overt full √-morpheme.

(157) a. D [NP [N(P) copil] [AP frumos]] → copil-ul frumos

b. D [FP [AP/DegP atât de frumoasă] [F´ F [N/NP fată]]] → atât de frumoas-a fată

c. D [NumP [doi] [NP copii]] → *doi-i copii (defective φ-morpheme) → cei doi copii
d. D [DegP[Degmai][AP frumoşi]]]→*mai-i frumoşi (no φ-morpheme) → cei mai frumoşi
e. D [NP [ NP e] [AP mari]]] → *-i mari (no morpheme at all) → cei mari

The fact that in superlatives the determiner forms a constituent with the degree phrase is
shown by the general distribution of superlatives: the article appears before the degree head
mai in all positions, predicative as well as postnominal (for the postnominal position
Romanian behaves like French and unlike Italian or English); the article cannot be separated
from the degree head mai by any word (while in French a cardinal may intervene):

(158) a. casele cele mai înalte

houses-the the more high
‘the highest houses’
b. cei (*doi) mai înalŃi (doi) munŃi
the two more high two mountains
‘The two highest mountains’

For prenominal superlatives like in (158)b, since cel forms a constituent with the superlative,
it cannot be inserted under D, so we assume that the entire superlative phrase is inserted in
SpecDP, which suffices to mark the DP as definite:

(159) [DP[DPcei mai frumoşi] [D´[D+def][NPcopii]]]

the more beautiful children

53
The insertion in SpecDP is demonstrated by examples as (158)b (repeated below): no
qualitative adjective can precede a cardinal (cf. (160)), except for the superlative19:

(158) b. cei (*doi) mai înalŃi (doi) munŃi

the.MPL two more high two mountains(M)
‘The two highest mountains’
(160) *înalŃii doi munŃi
high-the.MPL two mountains(M)

The suffixation rule cannot make reference to the following morpho-phonological word
instead of the head of D’s complement because adjectives suffixed with the definite article
may be preceded by other words (degree modifiers) and even appear in a complex
construction Degree word + de + A, as shown in (157)b. (See chapter 6 for this construction.)
The other way to analyze the distribution of the definiteness marker is to derive it from
movement of either N or AP to D or SpecDP, respectively. Most analyses which embraced
this hypothesis explained the difference between the position of the definite noun (always the
first) and that of the definite adjective (possibly preceded by degree words) by assuming that
N moves as a head while AP moves as a phrase.
In order to explain why, if an adjective is prenominal, it is it rather than the noun
which moves, this analysis must assume that prenominal adjectives are structurally closer to
D than the N, unlike postnominal adjectives. This leads to the same proposal as in the
lowering analysis above, namely that prenominal adjectives are specifiers of functional
projections higher than the NP. (See chapter 6 for independent evidence for such a proposal.)
Note that the relative order of nouns and adjectives is not changed by the article’s
suffixation. The following examples show that pre- and post-nominal adjectives keep their
readings in phrases with the suffixal definite article:

(161) a. o casă mare Neutral, restrictive reading of the A

a house big
b. casa mare ’’
house-the big
c. o mare casă Affective, non-restrictive reading of the A
a big house
d. marea casă ’’
big-the house

An argument in favor of an analysis by movement is the behavior of post-nominal

demonstratives, which we will present in the following sub-section (see (163) below).

1.8.2 Demonstratives

Demonstratives distinguish two layers of proximity: the proximal acest, pronominal and

19
Cardinals may be preceded by ordinal adjectives such as prim ‘first’, ultim ‘last’, which we included
among functional elements, and, exceptionally, by adjectives which take scope above them:
(i) Fostele trei legi sunt acum una
former-the three laws are now one
‘What used to be three laws now are just one’
(ii) ? celebrii şapte înŃelepŃi
famous-the seven wise.PL
‘the famous seven wise men’ (they are famous not only individually, but also as a whole, as a
list - their number is famous)

54
postnominal acesta, colloquial ăsta, and the distal acel, pronominal and postnominal acela,
colloquial ăla.
They have the peculiarity of appearing both prenominally, in the D position, and
immediately following the definite noun, in this latter case having the ‘augmented’ form.
Colloquial speech mainly uses the augmented forms, in the short variants ăsta, ăla. Their
corresponding prenominal variants ăst and ăl are regional or archaic.

(162) a. acest bărbat

this man
b. bărbatul acesta /ăsta
man this.AUGM/this
c. Acesta /ăsta nu-mi place
this.AUGM /this not-me.CL.DAT likes
‘I don’t like this one’

Postnominal demonstratives must immediately follow the definite noun, intervening between
the noun and complements and modifiers which are very low in the structure, such as
classifying or relational adjectives (see chapter 6) and idiom chunks:

(163) a. studiile acestea filozofice (*acestea)

studies-the these.AUGM philosophical these
‘these philosophy studies’
b. faŃa aceasta de masă (*aceasta)
face-the this.AUGM of table this.AUGM
‘this table-cloth’
c. distribuirea aceasta a premiilor (*aceasta) de către director
distribution(F)-the this.AUGM al.FSG prices-the.GEN this.AUGM by headmaster
‘this distribution of the prices by the headmaster’

Relational or classifying adjectives and idiom chunks are always immediately attached to the
noun, in Romanian as well as cross-linguistically. Complements as in (163)c are generally
analyzed as being in the lexical projection of the noun. So, (163) clearly shows displacement
effects, resulting from movement of N to D.
Since postnominal demonstratives have augmented forms, it has been suggested that
they are in fact adjunct DPs. This is sustained by the fact that only they may appear with
personal pronouns, which, as we have seen, are pro-DPs:

(164) a. *aceşti voi

these you(PL)
b. voi ăştia
you these.AUGM

But this analysis cannot explain why the demonstrative has to follow immediately the definite
noun, separating it from complements and low-level modifiers. If no movement is involved,
the demonstrative would have to be adjoined at the N level in examples (163); furthermore,
adjuncts don’t show fixed positions.
Another way of explaining the postnominal position without movement is to say that
post-nominal demonstratives are D-clitics, lowering together with D. But it is difficult to treat

55
di- and tri-syllabic words as clitics. It is true that in normal speech they are not stressed, and
show the shorter forms ăsta, ăla. But they may be contrastively stressed20:

(165) a. Am spus masa ASTA.

have.1SG said table-the this
‘I said THIS table’
b. Am pus faŃa ASTA de masă
have.1SG put face-the this of table
‘I put THIS table-cloth’

On the other hand, the analysis by movement must explain why the demonstrative shows
augmented forms in postnominal position (see (162)-(163)), why it does not block raising to
D, as cardinals do ((166)), and why demonstratives cannot appear after an adjective suffixed
with the definite article (see (167)):

(166) a. copilul acesta

child-the this.AUGM
b. *copiii doi
children-the two
(167) *frumoşii aceştia copii
beautiful-the these.AUGM children

It has been proposed that the postnominal demonstrative does not block N-movement because
it is generated in a specifier position, and N-movement is head-movement. On the other hand
adjectives, being specifiers, raise to D by phrasal movement, and this movement is blocked by
the demonstrative specifier in (167).
But we have seen that in fact cardinals are specifiers too, since they may be phrasal
(see 1.5 ‘Quantitative expressions’). So this explanation does not account for (166)b.

If a demonstrative is present, the raising of the definite noun past the cardinals
becomes in fact possible:

(168) a. copiii aceştia doi

children-the these.AUGM two
‘these two children’
b. feŃele alea două de masă
faces-the those.AUGM two of table
‘those two table-clothes’

This indicates that it is not the cardinal per se which blocks movement, but rather the definite
D selecting cardinals is cel and not -L. In this hypothesis, cel and -L are different lexical units
and not merely different phonological realizations of the same item.

It has been proposed that cel is a definite D with specific selectional properties: it would select for a
phrase marked +Quantificational. Note however that not all quantitative expressions take cel (the
adjectival quantitatives mult, mulŃi ‘much, many’, puŃin, puŃini ‘few’, destul, destui ‘enough’ do not
take cel). So we may conclude that cel only selects for Quant2P, DegP with Deg=mai and N(um)P with
an empty N.

20
They may also be coordinated, but in this case we can always say that the second demonstrative is a DP
with [Ne], given the fact that postnominal demonstratives have the same form as pronominal demonstratives.

56
 As for the augmented form of postnominal demonstratives, one possibility is to say
that these forms represent strong forms used in the specifier position; -a could represent a pro-
N co-indexed with the head noun or a special deixis marker. It has been indeed noticed that, at
least in literary Romanian, prenominal demonstratives tend to be used with current discourse
topics while postnominal demonstratives are preferred for rhematic and constrastive uses.
Presumably a stronger deixis is needed in this case, and this is marked by -a. Note that
although the origin of this mark is not certain, historical linguists tend to believe that it
represents a former deictic adverb, the Latin hac (also found, with a preposed deictic particle,
in Italian qua ‘here’, for instance). In modern-day spoken Romanian, this interpretative
difference between prenominal and postnominal demonstratives is almost completely lost,
being superseded by a difference in register: prenominal forms are literary and formal, in the
colloquial register the postnominal forms are generalized.
A more significant fact about post-nominal demonstratives is that they show that the
D-level must be overtly realized in Romanian. For semantics a postnominal demonstrative
would have been sufficient to signal definiteness. Thus, the definite article on the noun
responds to a formal, syntactic requirement, namely to overtly mark the features of D (which,
of course, in phrases with demonstrative is definite). Intuitively speaking, the definite or
indefinite character of the DP must be expressed no later than on the first (immediate)
constituent of the DP (the head or the specifier of the maximal nominal projection). The same
phenomenon appears with proper names, especially anthroponyms. Used alone in their
standard, referential reading they don’t need any determiner. However, if they are preceded
by an adjective, even if this adjective is non-restrictive (a normal situation for prenominal
adjectives) and the noun keeps its referential reading, the definite article must be present (it is
suffixed on the adjective) (see chapter 11).

(169) a. Enescu tocmai dădea un concert

Enescu just give.IMPERF a concert
‘Enescu was just giving a concert’
b. Vestit*(ul) Enescu tocmai dădea un concert
famous-the Enescu just give.IMPERF a concert
‘The famous Enescu was just giving a concert’

Another peculiar property of demonstratives is that in the absence of a realized N they have
augmented forms even when they are followed by cardinals ((170)b). Other NFEs have the
augmented form only if they are immediately followed by [Ne] (see (170)c-e). Since the overt
N always follows the cardinal ((170)a), we would have expected that the augmented inflection
should not appear on demonstratives when they are followed by cardinals.

(170) a. aceşti patru oameni

all four people
b. aceşti??(a) patru
these(AUGM) four
c. alŃi patru oameni
other four people
d. alŃi(*i) patru
other(AUGM) four

The feminine singular forms of pronominal demonstratives may be used as neuter forms,
referring to facts, situations, propositions or utterances (see (171)a), or to uncategorized
perceptual objects (see (171)b). For anaphorical reference to a propositional object, the
proximal demonstrative is more frequent, because the discourse antecedent in this sort of

57
anaphoric relation is usually very close (in the immediately preceding sentence). The feminine
forms in this case do not reflect a feminine gender feature, as shown by the fact they trigger
masculine singular agreement (see (171)a):

(171) a. Asta e imposibil

this.FSG.AUGM is impossible.MSG
‘This is impossible’
b. Ce e aia?
what is that.FSG.AUGM
‘What’s that?’

The masculine singular form of the adjective most likely represents the default gender form in
the singular (a morphological default used when the adjective does not receive gender via
agreement), as shown by the fact that it also appears when the subject is a clausal projection,
i.e. an expression without a gender feature:

(172) (A te adresa astfel unui superior) e nerecomandabil.

to REFL address.INF so a.DAT superior is unadvisable
‘To talk like that to a superior is unadvisable.’

Neuter demonstratives are also distinguished from their feminine homonyms by the fact that
they do not take the object marker pe (see (173)) and are not clitic-doubled when fronted (see
(174)). They are the only definite phrases which are not clitic-doubled when fronted:

(173) a. Ia-o pe- asta [Ne] (with [Ne] = rochie ‘dress’, banană ‘banana’, pălărie ‘hat’
take-CL.3FSG DOM-this.FSG.AUGM etc. – a feminine noun)
‘Take this one!’
b. Ia asta! (with no implied nominal (no N-ellipsis))
take this FSG.AUGM
‘Take this!’
(174) a. Ocazia asta o aşteptam!
opportunity(F)-the this.FSG.AUGM CL.3FSG wait.IMPERF.1SG
‘That’s the opportunity I was waiting for!’
b. Asta aşteptam!
this.FSG.AUGM wait.IMPERF.1SG
‘That’s what I was waiting for!’

The absence of clitic-doubling with neuter demonstratives may be explained by the fact that
they lack gender, if we assume that accusative pronominal clitics are always marked for
gender (they have no default gender form).
We conclude that the neuter forms of the demonstratives don’t have any gender
feature. They do not introduce a [Ne] (they never involve the contextual recovery of a nominal
content), so they are pro-DPs. The feminine form is simply a morphological peculiarity (an
instance of homonymy).

1.8.3. Definite phrases in SpecDP

(i) We have seen that both analyses of article suffixation – the raising analysis and the
lowering analysis – need to say that in some cases the D-level marked +def is realized by a
definite phrase in its specifier position: superlatives, for the PF-analysis, and superlatives and
definite adjectives, for the syntactic analysis, are cases of this sort.

58
 (ii) Another instance of a definite phrase in SpecDP is that of prenominal ordinals.
Ordinals are formed by adding the article al (see 1.3.3.3 above) to the cardinal suffixed by
-lea (masculine) or -a (feminine). Like the other phrases introduced by al (genitive and
possessives, see chapter 5), ordinals may constitute complete definite DPs by themselves,
being able to appear in DP-contexts ((175)a). When adnominal, they may appear either in the
first position of the DP, thus marking the entire phrase as definite ((175)b), or after a definite
noun ((175)c), or after a determiner, either pre-nominally ((175)d) or post-nominally ((175)e):

(175) a. Al doilea tocmai a ajuns

al.MSG two-lea just has arrived
‘The second one has just arrived’
b. al doilea an
al.MSG two-lea year
‘the second year’
c. anul al doilea
year-the al.MSG two-lea
‘the second year’
d. acest al doilea an
this al.MSG two-lea year
‘this second year’
e. o clasă a doua
a class al.FSG two-a
‘a second grade’

The two positions with regard to the noun are correlated with a difference in meaning. In
postnominal position, ordinals may convey the meaning of classifying adjectives: that is, they
may express modification of the N-function, forming a complex predicate with the noun, and
not order as an independent property of the referent of the DP – for instance, (176)e only
means ‘a second grade’. See also the difference between the meanings of the ordinal in the
two occurrences below:

(176) a. A doua sonată care va fi cântată este sonata a doua de Grieg.

al.FSG two-a sonata which will be sung is sonata-the al.FSG two-a by Grieg.
‘The second sonata which will be performed is Grieg’s second sonata’
b. A doua sală pe stânga este clasa a doua.
al.FSG two-a room on left is class-the al.FSG two-a
‘The second room on the left is the second grade/form.’

In (176)b (like in (175)e) the postnominal ordinal refers to the second grade of the primary
cycle, which is part of the meaning of the nominal predicate applied to that group, while the
prenominal one shows spatial order as a property of a room.
Postnominal ordinals almost always follow a noun suffixed with the definite article.
Therefore the postnominal position of ordinals has been explained as a result of N-to-D, like
for demonstratives. Notice however that for some special meanings a postnominal ordinal
may also appear in an indefinite DP, as in (175)e, where no movement to D can be assumed.
Moreover, we have seen that there are some subtle meaning differences between the two
positions, which suggest that postnominal ordinals may, at least sometimes, occupy the
position of classifying adjectives (see chapter 6 on classifying adjectives), an NP-internal
position.
In (175)d we see that prenominal ordinals may be generated below D. For the initial
position we may assume either movement from this position to SpecDP or direct generation in

59
SpecDP. In either case, it is the +def feature of al that allows insertion into SpecDP and the
marking of the entire DP as definite, without an overt D.
The ordinal may also appear in another construction, in which al is preceded by the
preposition de and by the strong definite article cel: cel de-al doilea ‘the second’. In this case,
cel is the definite determiner of the entire DP, as can be seen by the fact that, unlike al, it
cannot be preceded by other determiners:

(177) a. un/ acest al doilea an

a / this al.MSG two-lea year
a/this second year’
b. (*un/*acest) cel de-al doilea an
a / this the de-al.MSG two-lea year

This structure is also marginal in postnominal position, and it doesn’t allow the classificatory
adjective reading which we have seen above for ‘simple’ ordinals. Since adjectives may
appear postnominally preceded by cel (see chapter 6), these marginal cases don’t contradict
the analysis of cel as the regular definite article:

(178) ? venirea cea de-a doua

coming-the the de-al.FSG two-a

The status of de is not clear in these structures. It doesn’t seem to be a mere adjectivizer, since
it doesn’t appear in cases such as (175)e, (176). However, it serves or rather used to serve as
an adjectivizer in cases such as: văr de-al doilea ‘second cousin’, which are idiomatic in the
contemporary language.
This structure is used to supply the oblique case when the ordinal is prenominal and
the DP is simply definite (no demonstrative or other determiner is present): al does not have
forms for oblique case, so it cannot appear in the first position of the DP, where case is
marked:

(179) a. *alui doilea

al.OBL second
b. celui de-al doilea
the.MSG.OBL de-al.MSG two-lea
‘of/to the second’

A special property of ordinals is that they don’t have plural forms. This is not a property of al,
since al with the genitives has plural:

(180) a. *ai doiia

al.MPL two.MPL-a
b. ai fetei
al.MPL girl-the.GEN

For ‘first’ and ‘last’ special forms are used: the adjectives prim and ultim. They usually bear
the suffixal definite article ((181)a-b), but may also be preceded by other determiners ((181)c-
d). However, N-ellipsis is only allowed when they bear the definite article ((181)e-f):

(181) a. prima întâlnire

first-the meeting

60
 b. ultima întrebare
last-the question
c. o primă problemă
a first problem
d. această ultimă întrebare
this last question
e. Să discutăm problemele. Prima problemă / o primă problemă este…
SUBJ discuss.1PL problems-the first-the problem / a first problem is
‘Let’s discuss the problems. The/a first problem is…’
f. Să discutăm problemele. Prima / *o primă este…
SUBJ discuss.1PL problems-the first-the / a first is
‘Let’s discuss the problems. The/a first is…’

Unlike the other ordinals (the cardinal-based ordinals), these words have plural and cannot
appear postnominally with the ordinal meaning – ultim may appear postnominally with a
related quality meaning: ‘supreme’, while post-nominal prim means ‘prime’ (the
mathematical term). When they take a plural, this may also contain a cardinal ((182)b).

(182) a. primii copaci

first-the trees
b. ultimele (două) veşti
last-the two news
c. *copacii primi
trees-the first
d. *veştile ultime
news-the last

For ‘first’ in the classificatory reading the postnominal indeclinable adjective întâi may be
used ((183)a-b). This adjective used to appear also prenominally, inflected and bearing the
suffixal definite article, and allowing N-ellipsis. In contemporary standard language, this
construction is obsolete ((183)c):

(183) a. clasa întâi

class-the first
‘the first grade (in school)’
b. anul întâi
year-the first
‘the first year (of the faculty)’
c. întâiul an
first-the year

Ordinals also have an interrogative form, built on the quantitative interrogative cât with the
ordinal suffixes -elea (masculine), -a (feminine) and introduced, like regular ordinals, by the
article al: al câtelea, a câta ‘what (meaning: occupying which position in an ordered
domain)’. By prefixing this form with the free-choice ori-, the free-choice ordinal is formed:
al oricâtelea, a oricâta ‘no matter which (in an order)’.
(iii) The last instance of a definite phrase occupying SpecDP is that of prenominal
genitives introduced by al. Genitives have a structure similar to ordinals, but they differ by
appearing only exceptionally in SpecDP (only al cărui ‘whose’ in standard speech). For
details, see chapter 5 ‘Genitives.’

(184) a. a cărui casă

al.FSG whose house(F)

61
 b. casa frumoasă a căruia
house(F)-the beautiful al.FSG whose

To sum up, the following phrases, which may constitute definite DPs by themselves, may also
occupy SpecDP, marking the DP as definite:

• Superlatives: (cea mai mare) casă

the more big house
‘the biggest house’
• Ordinals: (a doua) casă
al.FSG two.a house(F)
‘the second house’
• Genitives: (a cărui) casă
al.FSG whose house(F)
‘whose house’

1.9. Pre-determiners

The universal quantifiers toŃi ‘all’, amândoi ‘both’, tot ‘the whole’21 appear, like in other
languages, before a definite DP, more precisely, before a DP marked with the definite article
(either suffixal – (185)a, d –, or strong – (185)e), the demonstrative ((185)b), the definite
(compound) alternatives ((185)c):

(185) a. toŃi elevii

all pupils-the
b. amândoi aceşti autori
both these authors
c. toate celelalte probleme
all the-other problems
d. toată casa
whole house-the
e. toŃi cei şapte profesori
all the seven teachers

They cannot combine with the identity determiner:

(186) *M-am întâlnit cu toate aceleaşi persoane

REFL-have.1SG met with all same persons
‘I met all the same persons’

In some fixed expressions – e.g. tot omul ‘all man-the’ –, the universal may also combine
with a count singular marked with the definite article, with a universal distributive generic
meaning ‘every, any’. This meaning is also obtained when it precedes prenominal ordinals:

(187) Tot al doilea om va muri.

all al.MSG two.lea man will die
‘Every second person will die.’

The non-distributive universal meaning reappears when the ordinal is postnominal:

21
The singular tot is a universal that quantifies on the parts of the referent (as in (149)d).

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(188) tot anul al doilea
all year-the al.MSG two.lea
‘the whole second year’

With prenominal superlatives, pre-D universals are somewhat marginal, the postnominal
placement of superlatives being preferred in this case:

(187) a. ?toŃi cei mai bătrâni politicieni

all the more old politicians
b. ?toŃi cei mai cunoscuŃi autori
all the more known authors
c. toŃi politicienii cei mai bătrâni
all politicians-the the more old
‘all the eldest politicians’
d. toŃi autorii cei mai cunoscuŃi
all authors-the the more known
‘all the most famous authors’

Pre-Ds allow noun ellipsis – which, in this case, would presumably involve a whole null DP:

(188) a. M-am văzut cu toŃi colegii

REFL-have.1SG seen with all.MPL colleagues(M)-the
‘I met all my colleagues’
b. M-am văzut cu toŃi [Ne]
REFL-have.1SG seen with all.MPL
‘I met (them) all’

We analyse (188)b as containing a pro-N inside a definite DP, with a null D licensed by the
universal. Notice that an overt article is impossible not only in Romanian, where the article is
suffixal, but also in languages with proclitic article (e.g. French, Italian: avec tous (*les)). The
probable explanation is that the definite article is universally a phonological clitic, which must
find a host inside its complement.
In the case of N-ellipsis, pre-Ds may also be followed by cardinals. They don’t bear
then the augmented inflection ((189)b), which shows that [Ne] is after the cardinal in this
construction (so the cardinal occupies its normal adnominal position and is not right-
adjoined):

(189) a. ToŃi trei au venit deodată

all.MPL three have come at-once
b. tuturor(*a) trei
all.OBL(AUGM) three

Exceptionally, phrases made of a universal and a cardinal may appear in pre-D position,
before a definite noun. This is generally found with simple anaphoric DPs. With more
complex DPs the structure becomes marginal, a single pre-D universal being preferred:

(190) a. toŃi trei copiii

all.MPL three children(M)-the
b. ?? toŃi patru profesorii noştri de lingvistică
all.MPL four teachers(M)-the our of linguistics
c. toŃi cei patru profesori ai noştri de lingvistică
all.MPL the MPL four teachers(M)-the al.MPL our of linguistics

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This position of the cardinal is contingent on the presence of the universal – otherwise
cardinals cannot appear before a definite noun (see (191)). This indicates that the cardinal
forms a constituent with the universal. This means that at least in this case pre-D universals
are phrasal FEs, occupying a specifier position.

(191) *trei copiii

three children-the

With personal pronouns, pre-Ds only occur in postposition:

(192) a. noi /ei toŃi

we /they all.MPL
b. *toŃi noi/ei
all.MPL we/they

The postposed forms may be analyzed as right-adjoined to the pro-DP. In this case they have
the augmented form in the plural oblique (the only case where they have a distinct augmented
form), which can be interpreted as simply representing a ‘strong’ form:

(193) nouă tuturora /*tuturor /*toŃi

us.DAT all.OBL.AUGM/ all.OBL / all

Since universals combine with personal pronouns, we expect to find them with pro, and we
find indeed a universal without an overt noun in the subject position with a verb inflected for
the first or second person:

(194) ToŃi ne jucam cu mingea

all.MPL REFL play.IMPERF.1PL with ball-the
‘We all used to play with the ball.’

However, the analysis of such exemples is not completely clear because of the existence of
the phenomenon of quantifier floating.
As in other languages, pre-D universals may ‘float’, that is, appear separated from the
DP they quantify over, in special positions which always follow it, and are c-commanded by
it (cf. (195)d). Since this phenomenon concerns not only pre-Ds, but also the D fiecare, and
all these elements quantify over a DP in the phrase, it is known under the name of ‘quantifier
floating’.

(195) a. SoldaŃii muriseră toŃi

soldiers(M)-the had-died all.MPL
‘The soldiers had all died.’
b. Copiii se Ńineau (toŃi) de mână (#toŃi)22
children(M)-the REFL hold.IMPERF.3PL (all.MPL) of hand (all.MPL)
‘The children were all holding hands.’
c. Elevii au fost (toŃi) ascultaŃi (toŃi) de către profesor (#toŃi).
pupils(M)-the have been (all.MPL) listened (all.MPL) by teacher (all.MPL)
‘The pupils have all been examined by the teacher’
d. *Părerea elevilor a fost a tuturor(a) /toŃi ascultată.
opinion(F)-the pupils(M)-the.GEN has been al.FSG all.GEN(AUGM)/all.MPL listened
Intended meaning: ‘the opinion of all the pupils was heard’

22
‘#’ indicates infrequency

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Since the position to which quantifiers float concern the syntax of the sentence, we will treat
the phenomenon of quantifier floating in the second volume of this Grammar. As far as the
DP-structure is concerned, we may note that in Romanian, as in other languages, there are
some indications that the floated quantifier is not always a pre-D quantifier, stranded by
further movement from its DP: there are cases of DPs (more precisely, coordinated singular
DPs and collectives) which may be associated with floated quantifiers but do not allow a pre-
D quantifier.

(196) a. Maria, Ion şi Ioana sunt toŃi bolnavi

Maria Ion and Ioana are all.MPL ill
b. *ToŃi Maria, Ion şi Ioana sunt bolnavi
all.MPL Maria Ion and Ioana are ill
c. Fratele meu şi fratele tău sunt amândoi nişte idioŃi
brother-the my and brother-the your are both.MPL s’m idiots
‘My brother and your brother are both idiots.’
d. *Amândoi fratele meu şi fratele tău sunt nişte idioŃi
both MPL brother-the my and brother-the your are s’m idiots
(197) a. Grupul de la masa a şasea sunt toŃi beŃi.
group-the from table-the sixth are all.MPL drunk
‘The group from table number six are all drunk’
b. *ToŃi grupul de la masa a şasea sunt beŃi
all.MPL group-the from table-the sixth are drunk

The universal has a special pro-DP form (which doesn’t contain a contextually identifiable
pro-N) in the masculine singular, interpreted as a neuter pronoun: totul ‘the whole,
everything’. This form has only the direct case, and shows the definite declension:

(198) Totul e pierdut

all-the is lost
everything is lost

Pre-D universals may be used predicatively:

(199) Suntem toŃi

are.1PL all.MPL
‘We are all here/present’

1.10. The system of compound determiners, pro-DPs and pro-locative-adverbials

We will treat here the issue of compound determiners to the extent to which their structure is
relevant for syntax.
As many other languages, Romanian has series of determiners, pro-DPs and locative
adverbs derived in a transparent way from the interrogative-relative stem. Their morphemes
correspond to features relevant for syntax as well as semantics. According to some
morphological theories, they would enter the syntactic derivation as separated items, and the
complex forms would be the result of head-merging in syntax.
In these words, we may distinguish an operator part and a part roughly corresponding
to the descriptive content. The categorial properties are given by the content part, thus the
operator morphemes are not really Ds, but rather categorically underspecified.
(i) Content-morphemes:

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 ce: underspecified; as we have seen in 1.3, it may act as a determiner, but in the
absence of the noun, the concurrence of the other forms, more specified, leaves it the
meanings -animate and -anaphoric [Ne], creating the appearance of a neuter pro-DP;
also due to its underspecificity it may function as a quantity word, but in fewer
contexts than cât, which is explicitely marked for quantity: in the bare form (used for
interrogative-relative, v. infra), as a degree head (ce mare ‘how big’; see chapter 6),
otherwise restricted to the exclamative use (ce doarme ‘how much he sleeps!’); in the
existential form, as a quantitative (for quantitative ceva see 1.5).
cine: ‘x a person’. Always of category N, it gives rise to pro-DPs.
care: +partitive (‘xA’): it appears in determiners
cât: quantity, with the large distribution of quantity phrases, which, as we have seen in
1.6, is not restricted to nominal projections;
unde: ‘x a place’: adverbial (locative PP) distribution
când: ‘x a time’: (temporal) adverbial distribution
cum: ‘x a manner’: manner adverbial distribution
(ii) Operator-morphemes:
Ø: interrogative-relative
ori-, (seldom) orişi-: free-choice
-va: existential
(iii) A third content morpheme which may be added to the combination of the content
morpheme and the existential operator is the alternative alt- (see also 1.7).
We illustrate the possible combinations in the following table:

(200)
interrogative-relative existential free-choice alternative
unspecified ce ceva orice, orişice altceva
animate cine cineva oricine altcineva
partitive care careva oricare -
quantity cât câtva oricât -
place unde undeva oriunde altundeva
time când cândva oricând altcândva
manner cum cumva oricum altcumva

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