Determiner: Difference between revisions

A '''determiner''' is a particle that consumes a [[verb form]] and produces a [[noun form]] — specifically, a [[determiner phrase]].

For example: {{t|sá}} “some” is a determiner, {{t|bıo}} “…is a cup” is a predicate phrase, and {{t|sá bıo}} is a noun form meaning “some cup(s).”

| {{t|sá}} || some X

| {{t|tú}} || every/each single X

| {{t|tútu}} || every group of X-es (see below)

| {{t|túq}} || all the Xs together

| {{t|sía}} || no X

| {{t|ní}} || this/that X

| {{t|hú}} || endophoric determiner

| {{t|ké}} || exophoric determiner

| {{t|báq}} || X in general, X-[[kind]]

| {{t|já}} || λX, see [[Property]]

Formally, grammatical determiners tend to correspond to logical '''quantifiers''' over a now-bound variable, plus an occurrence of that variable. For example, the {{t|sa}} determiner corresponds to the <math>\exists</math> quantifier. The tagged predicate phrase doubles both as a ''domain'' and a ''name'' for the variable.

 

# <span style="color:chocolate">specifies</span> that it refers to a cup (or some cups: see [[plural logic]]);

# acts in its place in the sentence as an <span style="color:teal">instance</span> of this variable.

 

{{t|Heaq jí <u>sá bıo</u>.}}<br>

    {\color{teal}    \underbrace{\textsf{bio}}_{3}}

I'm holding some cup(s).

{{t|tú bıo}} quantifies over single cups, i.e. each individual cup. This is often what we want to say, despite not being the "purest" form of for-all quantification in [[plural logic]]; after all, ''groups'' of several cups are also {{t|bio}}. The expression {{t|tútu bıo}} quantifies over the range of "cups-es": the possible values of {{t|bío}} then include not only individual cups, but also groups of cups.

You can read {{t|tútu bıo nä …}} as: "for all ''xx'', if ''xx'' are some cups…"

{{t|túq bıo}} doesn't make a "for-all" statement. Instead it refers to the single entity "all cups (together)".