Editing Determiner phrase (section)

===Absent determiners===
Many languages lack the equivalents of the English definite and indefinite articles, e.g. the Slavic languages. Thus in these languages, determiners appear much less often than in English, where the definite article ''the'' and the indefinite article ''a'' are frequent. What this means for the DP-analysis is that null determiners are a common occurrence in these languages. In other words, the DP-analysis must posit the frequent occurrence of null determiners in order to remain consistent about its analysis of DPs. DPs that lack an overt determiner actually involve a covert determiner in some sense. The problem is evident in English as well, where mass nouns can appear with or without a determiner, e.g. ''milk'' vs. ''the milk'', ''water'' vs. ''the water''. Plural nouns can also appear with or without a determiner, e.g. ''books'' vs. ''the books'', ''ideas'' vs. ''the ideas'', etc. Since nouns that lack an overt determiner have the same basic distribution as nouns with a determiner, the DP-analysis should, if it wants to be consistent, posit the existence of a null determiner every time an overt determiner is absent. The traditional NP analysis is not confronted with this necessity, since for it, the noun is the head of the noun phrase regardless of whether a determiner is or is not present. Thus the traditional NP analysis requires less of the theoretical apparatus, since it does not need all those null determiners, the existence of which is non-falsifiable. Other things being equal, less is better according to [[Occam's Razor]].