Definiteness and determinacy.
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, presupp...
| Publicado en: | Linguistics & Philosophy Vol. 38; no. 5; pp. 377 - 436 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Oct2015
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=109475514&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 109475514 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01650157 OJI jtl: Linguistics & Philosophy issn: 01650157 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2015 vid: 38 iid: 5 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 109475514 10.1007/s10988-015-9178-8 ppf: 377 ppct: 59 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 978KB tig: atl: Definiteness and determinacy. aug: au: Coppock, Elizabeth Beaver, David affil: University of Gothenburg and Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala Sweden The University of Texas at Austin, Austin USA su: Semantics (Philosophy) Locative constructions (Grammar) Language ability testing Discourse analysis Reading motivation Reading comprehension sug: subj: Semantics (Philosophy) Locative constructions (Grammar) Language ability testing Discourse analysis Reading motivation Reading comprehension keyword: Definiteness Descriptions Possessives Predicates Type-shifting ab: 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. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Linguistics & Philosophy is a copyright of Springer, 2015. All Rights Reserved. item: Linguistics & Philosophy holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2015 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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