Small Nominals

This paper investigates Small Nominals, that is nominals that lack the DP projection. It is shown that Small Nominals can appear in argument positions, but even in argument positions they are non-referential. Thus, it is proposed that thematic relations underpinning argumenthood, on the one hand, and referentiality, on the other hand, do not rely on the same mechanism (e.g., referential indices). The analysis developed in this paper makes use of φ-features instead of referential indices; specifically, referentiality is said to be encoded by means of φ-feature values, which are unavailable until D° is merged. Finally, it is argued that the differences between languages without overt articles (e.g., Russian) and those with overt articles (e.g., Norwegian) are purely morphological rather than syntactic; both types of languages are shown to have both DPs and Small Nominals.