Some word class problems: many and such

Major grammarians classify the word class of determinatives into the three subcategories of

(i) predeterminatives: all, both, double, half, such, etc.
(ii) central determinatives: a, the, this, that, these, those, my, his, etc.
(iii) postdeterminatives: two, three, second, third, last, next, few, many, etc.

based on the order of their distribution if more than one determinatives occur successively in a phrase. This means that if a phrase contains more than one determinative in a row, then the only allowable order among them is predeterminative--central determinative--postdeterminative.

While the above order explains the distributional properties of determinatives quite broadly, there are still other issues this order cannot account for. For example, consider the following phrases:

1. many a good friend
2. these many good friends

In (1), the distributive order is postdeterminatuve--central determinative while in (2) it is central determinative -- postdeterminative.


(To be continued)