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I would argue that "the" is a determiner, and the class of determiners is mostly closed. A determiner is the root of a determiner phrase. A determiner phrase

I would argue that "the" is a determiner, and the class of determiners is mostly closed. A determiner is the root of a determiner phrase. A determiner phrase can consist of only the root, like "the" or "a", but it can also be more complex like "every other", "uncomfortably few", or "90% of". (This is all from chomsky's x-bar theory [0], which dates back to the 60s. I'm not aware of another model of syntax that better captures reality, but I'd love to hear about such.) So the class of determiners is probably closed, but the class of determiner phrases is not (because phrases like "fewer than five of", "fewer than six of", etc are "generative" i.e. you can generate as many as you like). I could absolutely conceive of a situation where a certain determiner phrase gets used so much in a community that an abbreviation becomes accepted as a new determiner. Perhaps parliamentary procedure buffs, who (say) care about 2/3s majority just as much as simple majority ("most"), come up with "tooths" meaning "at least two thirds of", and it becomes accepted as jargon within that community. Could totally see it happening. In fact, if anybody knows of any such instances I'd love to hear about them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory

unhammer 11y ago
Well, you've got https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_functional_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_functional_grammar and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-driven_phrase_structure_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-driven_phrase_structure_g... which are both model-theoretic grammars (see http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220718697_On_the_Distinction_between_Model-Theoretic_and_Generative-Enumerative_Syntactic_Frameworks http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220718697_On_the_Dis... ). In short, grammar rules are constraints that have to unify in order to describe a grammatical utterance, instead of phrase-structure rules that generate sentences. And there are newer theories that are much more compatible with a probabilistic / data-oriented outlook, even combining this with the model-theoretic grammar: http://www.nclt.dcu.ie/lfg-dop/ http://www.nclt.dcu.ie/lfg-dop/ People into semantics seem to like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_grammar which I never learnt much about. Oh and there's also the Meaning-Text theory, Relational Grammar and various dependency-based frameworks, Optimality Theory applied to syntax, … it goes on and on :)
stephencanon 11y ago
> I could absolutely conceive of a situation where a certain determiner phrase gets used so much in a community that an abbreviation becomes accepted as a new determiner... In fact, if anybody knows of any such instances I'd love to hear about them. "Hella" in bay area (especially east bay) dialect (more common c. 2000, but you can still hear it today): "There were hella people at the party!"

unhammer 11y ago

Well, you've got https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_functional_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_functional_grammar and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-driven_phrase_structure_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-driven_phrase_structure_g... which are both model-theoretic grammars (see http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220718697_On_the_Distinction_between_Model-Theoretic_and_Generative-Enumerative_Syntactic_Frameworks http://www.researchgate.net/publication/220718697_On_the_Dis... ). In short, grammar rules are constraints that have to unify in order to describe a grammatical utterance, instead of phrase-structure rules that generate sentences. And there are newer theories that are much more compatible with a probabilistic / data-oriented outlook, even combining this with the model-theoretic grammar: http://www.nclt.dcu.ie/lfg-dop/ http://www.nclt.dcu.ie/lfg-dop/ People into semantics seem to like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_grammar which I never learnt much about. Oh and there's also the Meaning-Text theory, Relational Grammar and various dependency-based frameworks, Optimality Theory applied to syntax, … it goes on and on :)

stephencanon 11y ago

> I could absolutely conceive of a situation where a certain determiner phrase gets used so much in a community that an abbreviation becomes accepted as a new determiner... In fact, if anybody knows of any such instances I'd love to hear about them. "Hella" in bay area (especially east bay) dialect (more common c. 2000, but you can still hear it today): "There were hella people at the party!"