draft of November 2011

(43) a. to vivlio mu
the book
my book
my
b. to palio mu aftokinito
the old my car
my old car
Perhaps most problematically for a head analysis of the article, Greek licenses polydefinites
or determiner spreading structures like (44a) along the monadic ones (44b) (for detailed
discussions of polydefinite structures see Androutsopoulou 1994; Alexiadou and Wilder 1998;
Kolliakou 2003,2004, Lekakou and Szendröi 2010 among others and Alexiadou, Haegeman,
and Stavrou 2007 for an overview).
(44) a. to kokino to podhilato to kenurjio
the red the bike the new
the red new bike
b. to kokino kenurjio podhilato
the red new bike
the red new bike
Both the monadic and polydefinite above refer uniquely to one bike; thus, the polydefinite
structures are not multiple definite phrases, as a head analysis would predict. To account for
this, many analyses stipulate that the article can be expletive, following Androutsopoulou
(1994). However, such analyses do not clarify when the article is expletive and when not, as
pointed out by Kolliakou (2003). Crucially, this view is misguided. The main piece of evidence
provided in support of the expletive analysis of the Greek article is its obligatoriness with
proper nouns as in (45).
(45) mu aresi o Messi/*Messi ala protimo to
me-gen like-3sg the-nom Messi
Maradona/*Maradona
Maradona
I like Messi but I prefer Maradona.
but prefer-1sg the-acc
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