Linguistics in Göttingen - A platform for empirical and theoretical linguistics

Andreas Blümel (Göttingen)

A fresh look at the syntax of nominal phrases


In this talk, I will outline distributional aspects of a novel approach to the syntax of nominal phrases, based on Oishi’s (2015) analysis of nominal phrases, and on Chomsky’s (2019) Hilbert epsilon operator recast of unbounded unstructured coordination and adjunction, respectively. These components yield a relatively simple, yet powerful syntax, and promise to unify phenomena like polydefiniteness, non-polydefiniteness, and nominal concord. Importantly, they are tailor-made for article-less languages and thereby might contribute to the goal of a parameter-free UG (Obata et al 2015, pace Bošković 2008).


  • Bošković, Z. (2008) What will you have, DP or NP? In Proceedings of NELS 37.
  • Chomsky, N. (2019) UCLA-lecture. April 29–May 2, 2019
  • Obata, M., S. D. Epstein, and M. Baptista (2015) Can crosslinguistically variant grammars be formally identical? Third factor underspecification. Lingua 156, 1–16.
  • Oishi, M. (2015) The hunt for a label. In H. Egashira et al. (eds.), In untiring pursuit of better alternatives. Tokyo: Kaitakusha, 322–344.