In
linguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, a
determiner phrase (DP) is a syntactic category, a phrase
headedIn linguistics, the head is the word that determines the syntactic type of the phrase of which it is a member, or analogously the stem that determines the semantic category of a compound of which it is a component. The other elements modify the head....
by a determiner. The
noun phraseIn grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....
is strictly speaking a determiner phrase, and
NP designates a constituent of the noun phrase, taken to be the
complementIn grammar the term complement is used with different meanings. The primary meaning is a word, phrase or clause that is necessary in a sentence to complete its meaning. We find complements that function as an argument and complements that exist within arguments.Both complements and modifiers add...
of the determiner. This is opposed to the traditional view that determiners are
specifierIn X-bar theory in linguistics, specifiers, head words, and complements together form phrases. Specifiers differ from complements because they are not sisters of the head, but rather sisters of the phrase formed by the head and the complement...
s of the noun phrase. The DP analysis of noun phrases is the majority view in
generative grammarIn theoretical linguistics, generative grammar refers to a particular approach to the study of syntax. A generative grammar of a language attempts to give a set of rules that will correctly predict which combinations of words will form grammatical sentences...
today, but it is a minority stance in the study of theoretical syntax in general.
On the DP analysis of noun phrases, determiners govern the referential or
quantificationQuantification has several distinct senses. In mathematics and empirical science, it is the act of counting and measuring that maps human sense observations and experiences into members of some set of numbers. Quantification in this sense is fundamental to the scientific method.In logic,...
al properties of the noun phrases they embed. The idea that noun phrases preceded by determiners are
determiner phrases is known as the
DP hypothesis. The DP hypothesis is compatible with the theory of
generalized quantifierIn linguistic semantics, a generalized quantifier is an expression that denotes a property of a property, also called a higher-order property. This is the standard semantics assigned to quantified noun phrases, also called determiner phrases, in short: DP...
s, which is the prevailing theory of the
semanticsSemantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
of determiners.
In some versions of the
Minimalist ProgramIn linguistics, the Minimalist Program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside generative grammar since the early nineties. It started with a 1993 paper by Noam Chomsky....
the DP is itself the complement of a phase head, n*, from which it inherits the ability to agree with its complement and assign
caseIn grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
.