The Syntax Of Quantifiers In The Framework Of Phase Theory

The present thesis studies the syntax of quantifiers in the framework of DP Analysis and the Phase Theory. As the syntactic study has further progressed, the DP Analysis for the analyzing of the nominal phrases has been proposed (Abney 1987). Since the parallel studies between clauses and nominal phrases have been noticed in the latest development of generative grammar, the phase theory is adopted in nominal phrases.In the literature of the generative grammar, there are some different views on the syntax of quantifiers, which will be reviewed in this paper. There are four prevalent representative analyses reviewed in this thesis. These four analyses are: quantifiers are modifiers of the noun, functioning as adjectives, and appearing in SpecNP (Abney 1987); quantifiers are adjoined to the noun (Sportiche 1988); on a par with D, quantifiers are functional categories occupying the position of heads (Shlonsky, cited in Coene and D'hulst 2003); quantifiers are lexical categories in the position of heads or specifiers of the noun phrase. They can either be adjectives or lexical heads that select a full DP, which is a noun phrase with its complete extended projection, as its complement (Giusti 1997, 2002).Though the previous research provides us with many facts of quantifiers, quantifiers have never been examined in the framework of the phase theory. In order to get more facts about the nature of quantifiers, I adopt phase theory to the study of quantifiers in my thesis. Notice that quantifiers do not always appear in the prenominal positions. Besides the structure of Quantifier-Noun, there is also Noun-Quantifier structure appearing in some languages, such as Japanese and Basque, and so on. However, I assume that quantifiers are always generated in the prenominal positions; the postnominal positions are due to the movement of the nouns, which they modify. I assume that there are at least two phases in noun phrases: DP and nP. I argue that quantifiers are lexical categories and occupy the position of heads or specifiers of light n. I try to find the possible reasons that lead to the language variations.