Definiteness (original) (raw)
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This paper distinguishes between definiteness and determinacy. Definiteness is seen as a morphological category which, in English, marks a (weak) uniqueness presupposition, while determinacy consists in denoting an individual. Definite descriptions are argued to be fundamentally predicative, presupposing uniqueness but not existence, and to acquire existential import through general type-shifting operations that apply not only to definites, but also indefinites and possessives. Through these shifts, argumental definite descriptions may become either determinate (and thus denote an individual) or indeterminate (functioning as an existential quantifier). The latter option is observed in examples like ‘Anna didn’t give the only invited talk at the conference’, which, on its indeterminate reading, implies that there is nothing in the extension of ‘only invited talk at the conference’. The paper also offers a resolution of the issue of whether possessives are inherently indefinite or definite, suggesting that, like indefinites, they do not mark definiteness lexically, but like definites, they typically yield determinate readings due to a general preference for the shifting operation that produces them.
The ingredients of definiteness and the definiteness effect
Natural Language Semantics, 1995
Keenan (1987) observed that trivial determiners built from basic existential determiners (e.g.,either zero or else more than zero) are allowed inthere-insertion contexts, and that trivial determiners built from basic non-existential determiners (e.g.,either all or else not all) are not. This result is unexpected under the analyses ofthere-sentences proposed in Barwise and Cooper (1981), Higginbotham (1987), and Keenan (1987). I argue
Comparing various nominal structures in English, Italian and Chinese and focusing on semantic contrasts occurring in argument and predicative position we argue that the difference between `anaphoric' and `uniqueness-based' definites can be reduced to the existence of two DP projections, one denoting an individual, the other a unique/maximal property. Language tends to insert the smallest projection which (a) has the required semantic type; (b) can host all the lexical material in the numeration. The argument is based on data from possessives, predicate nominals and bare-noun coordination.
This textbook investigates definiteness both from a comparative and a theoretical point of view, showing how languages express definiteness and what definiteness is. It surveys a large number of languages to discover the range of variation in relation to definiteness and related grammatical phenomena: demonstratives, possessives, personal pronouns. It outlines work done on the nature of definiteness in semantics, pragmatics and syntax , and develops an account on which definiteness is a grammatical category represented in syntax as a functional head (the widely discussed D). Consideration is also given to the origins and evolution of definite articles in the light of the comparative and theoretical findings. Among the claims advanced are that definiteness does not occur in all languages though the pragmatic concept which it grammaticalizes probably does, that many languages have definiteness in their pronoun system but not elsewhere, that definiteness is not inherent in possessives, and that definiteness is to be assimilated to the grammatical category of person.
Grammatical ingredients of definiteness
2014
This dissertation presents arguments in favour of an explicit Logical Form representation of components responsible for direct referentiality and domain restriction in definites, with a focus on Austro-Bavarian German, Standard Swedish, and Standard Canadian English. It provides a semantico-pragmatic analysis of the ban on wh-subextraction out of DPs with the “strong” articles in Austro-Bavarian and demonstratives in English which assumes their direct referentiality. The ungrammaticality of question formation is proposed to result from the pathological uninformativeness of its possible answers. The ban on whsubextraction thus emerges as a new testing tool for direct referentiality. I further propose an analysis of the cases where strong articles and demonstratives do not behave directly referentially. Assuming structural decomposition of strong articles and demonstratives into a determiner head and a relational head, I propose that directly referential interpretation results from a ...