1 No DP-analysis of Indo-Aryan languages Deepak Alok Sriniket Kr. Mishra Centre for Linguistics Department of French Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University Banaras Hindu University New Delhi, India Varanasi, UP, India deepak06alok@gmail.com sriniket@yahoo.com Abstract Since 1987, after DP-analysis of noun phrase i.e. DP-hypothesis, Indo-Aryan languages have been studied adopting DP-hypothesis i.e. Dasgupta & Bhattacharya (1993), Ghosh (1995), Bhattacharya & Dasgupta (1996), Bhattacharya (1995, 1998, 1999, 2001), Ghosh 2002, Thakur (2000), Thakur (2004) despite they do not have (in)definite article. The main aim of this paper is to argue that there is no DP-analysis of Indo-Aryan languages contra, to universal DP-hypothesis. The noun phrases in these languages behave syntactically and semantically different than an article language such as English. In this paper, we examine these differences and argue in favor of no DP analysis of article-less languages i.e. Corver (1992), Zlatić (1997), Chierchia (1998), Dayal (2004,2009), Bošković (2005a, 2005b, 2008, 2010a, 2010b). 1. Introduction The noun phrase is headed by a functional element (i.e., “non-lexical“ category) D, identified with the determiner. The analysis in which D heads the noun phrase I call the “DP-analysis.” (Abney 1987:3) Since 1987, Noun phrase (henceforth NP) has been re-analyzed in terms of determiner phrase (hereafter DP). The central claim of DP-hypothesis is that an NP is headed by the functional element D. However, the study of last three decades in the area of noun phrase i.e Corver (1992), Zlatić (1997), Dayal (2004, 2009), Bošković (2005a, 2005b, 2008, 2010a, 2010b) and many others has raised a number of questions regarding the status of the determiners found within NPs such as the position and interpretation of definite or indefinite articles and other D- items such as demonstratives, possessives. Moreover, the syntactic and semantic behaviour of NPs of the languages which do not have overt articles behaves different from the languages which have overt articles. Corver (1992) argues that the reason behind unavailability of the extraction of pre-nominal phrases in English is that the English NP projects the DP projection. And it is DP that bans extraction of pre-nominal elements in article languages. Languages which permit this extraction lack this functional category (Corver 1992). Zlatić (1997) argues that DPs are found only in article languages. Extending this tradition, Bošković (2005a, 2005b, 2008, 2010a, 2010b) makes similar claim. According to him, there are fundamental syntactic and semantic differences between article and article-less languages and these differences can be easily captured if we assume that there is a DP projection in article languages, but not in article-less languages. “……… there is a fundamental structural difference between the traditional noun phrase (TNP) in English and article-less languages like Serbo-Croatian (SC) that cannot be reduced to phonology (overt vs. phonological null articles). If D is posted for both, we need to mark a radical principled distinction between D in English and D in SC. .. .… they can be captured if there is a DP in the TNP of