Suggested answer for Exercise 5

In the Italian DP il mio libro the sequence determiner+possessive pronoun is grammatical. According to the text when there is a possessive pronoun in [Spec, DP], there is an unpronounced D head in D and that element is in complementary distribution with other types of determiners. One problem concerns the order of elements in the Italian example, as the element assumed to be sitting in specifier position follows the element assumed to occupy the head position. Secondly, it is difficult to maintain the idea that there is an unpronounced D head in complementary distribution with the definite determiner as there are languages where the two can co-occur and no ungrammaticality results.