Parametric changes in the history of the Greek article

This chapter accounts for two changes that distinguish Modern Greek from Ancient (Classical and New Testament) Greek: the requirement in Modern Greek that proper names occur with a definite article, and the rise of an indefinite article. It argues that these two changes are related. In Ancient Greek, nominal expressions could receive a singular count interpretation with a null expletive D head. The rise of overt indefinite articles indicates that the feature count had come to be grammaticalized (that is, required spellout). Once this requirement was in place, a null expletive in D became generally unavailable, requiring that the overt determiner in D select a proper name.