The differences between Danish determiner and quantity genitives: The essential data set

Abstract

This paper presents the set of essential syntactic and semantic data pertaining to Danish determiner genitives like Bos gode digt (‘Bo’s good poem’), measure genitives like to timers hård sejlads (‘two hours’ tough sailing’) and constitutive genitives like to retters lækker menu (‘two courses’ delicious menu)’. The two latter genitive types are both subtypes of the class of quantity genitives. I lay out a chart of Danish pre-nominal genitives and justify the inclusion of each type and its position in the chart. In a detailed table, the differences are characterised and exemplifi ed to make comparison possible and contrasts transparent. Finally, I discuss a number of issues concerning defi niteness, pronominalization, constituency and cliticization raised by a DP-analysis of determiner genitives proposed by Sten Vikner. Since we are still far from understanding the full landscape of Danish genitives syntactically as well as semantically, the aim of this paper is to offer an accurate description of the data in order that the creation of a coherent theory of Danish genitives may be thereby facilitated. 1. Methodological preliminaries The fi rst major work to explore and explicate generative syntax was Chomsky’s The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory in the mid-1950s.2 Three interdependent goals were set up: First, the construction of grammars for particular languages; second, the construction of an abstract theory of 1 My heart-felt thanks are due to professor emeritus Robert E.Wall, UT Austin, for reading and discussing the paper with me. 2 Later published as Chomsky 1975.