SPECIFICITY OPERATORS IN SpecDP
Richard Campbell · Studia Linguistica · 1996
Abstract.In this paper I argue that a common noun phrase DP contains a small clause, including both a predicate (headed by the common noun) and an abstract subject position. DPs that are specific (in the sense of EnG 1991) are argued to have an operator in SpecDP, which A‐bar binds the abstract subject position of the DP‐internal small clause. This analysis forms the basis of an account of the Specificity Effect on extraction from DP, as well as some other facts concerning the internal structure of DP. The analysis also predicts that while specific nominal predicates are DPs, non‐specific nominal predicates are not. The two kinds of nominal predicate differ distributionally, and it is shown that these differences follow from the proposed analysis.