The syntactic role of word markers in null nominal constructions

One type of Romance elliptical nominal constmcüon consists of an element resembling the indefinite article plus an adjective. It is argued that the terminal vowels (word markers,) characterisüc of Spanish and Italian nouns may be generated independent ofa lexical N-stem, and that the word marker licenses the empty projection corresponding to the elided noun, and subsequently undergoes syntactic head-raising and incorporates with the indefinite article. The analysis extends quite naturally to French. There is evidence that the Catalan strategy, although superficially distinct, is actually parallel to the Spanish/Italian one, except that an abstract word marker in this consiruction must be spelled out äs de.