How weak and how definite are Weak Definites?

Schwarz, Florian

doi:10.1075/la.219.09sch

Cited by 48 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Other dialects for which this phenomenon has been described include the Mönchengladbach dialect (Hartmann 1982), the Cologne dialect (Himmelmann 1997), Bavarian (Scheutz 1988;Schwager 2007) and Austro-Bavarian (Brugger and Prinzhorn 1996;Wiltschko 2011), Viennese (Schuster and Schikola 1984), Hessian (Schmitt 2006), and, perhaps the best documented case, the Frisian dialect of Fering (Ebert 1971a(Ebert ,1971b. 6 A parallel phenomenon is also present in standard German, although here the contrast is only present in particular morphological environments (Hartmann 1978(Hartmann , 1980Haberland 1985;Cieschinger 2006;Waldmüller 2008;Schwarz 2009). As Fering and German are the best documented cases, I will use them to illustrate the core phenomena.…”

Section: Examples From Germanicmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…But all the languages with an article contrast where such data points have been discussed use the form corresponding to the weak article for weak definites. It is by no means clear at this point what the connection here will turn out to be at a more technical level, but languages with a contrast in definite forms might provide at least a partial insight into understanding weak definites of this sort (for a sketch of a proposal for relating the semantics of weak articles definites to these Weak Definites, see Schwarz ).…”

Section: Further Languages and Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Two Kinds of Definites Cross‐linguistically

Schwarz

2013

Language and Linguist. Compass

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101

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Definite descriptions constitute a core device for managing reference in natural language, and their semantics has been explored in great detail within formal approaches. There also is a rich descriptive literature on cross‐linguistic phenomena concerning definites, but the theoretical literature has only recently begun to incorporate a wider range of languages and phenomena in this realm. The present paper provides an illustrative overview of one class of recently discussed cross‐linguistic phenomena, focusing on languages that differentiate between different kinds of definites (namely German, Fering, Akan, Mauritian Creole, Lakhota, Hausa, and Haitian Creole) and the theoretical views that seem to capture the two types most straightforwardly: one type of definite, involving ‘weak articles’, is based on uniqueness, whereas ‘strong article’ definites crucially involve an anaphoric link. The contrast extends to so‐called bridging uses in interesting ways, and the fact that there is a striking resemblance in the contrast across typologically unrelated languages points to a fundamental distinction that natural languages can utilize in organizing their referential system. The paper closes with an outlook on directions for future research.

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Section: Examples From Germanicmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Further Languages and Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Kinds of Definites Cross‐linguistically

Schwarz

2013

Language and Linguist. Compass

Self Cite

101

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“…The use of definite DPs to refer to entities given by the background knowledge of speaker and hearer, in the situation in which the conversation takes place, or in the preceding text is well known. But we find an apparently indefinite use with socalled weak definites (Poesio 1994, Carlson 2006, Schwarz 2014 We predict anaphoric uptake of weak definites to be possible, but less straightforward than uptake of wide-scope definites, as this requires abstraction and summation. This is corroborated by Aguilar-Guevara & Zwarts (2010), who find that while weak definites can be antecedents to anaphora, they are rather picked up by full definite noun phrases than by pronominals.…”

Section: Weak Definites In Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Number Neutrality and Anaphoric Update of Pseudo-Incorporated Nominals in Persian (and Weak Definites in English)

Krifka

Modarresi

2016

SALT

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Persian shows differential object marking. We argue that objects without the object marker rā are pseudo-incorporated in the verbal predicate; specifically, existential closure over the vP binds the event variable, and nominals in the vP are interpreted as dependent definites with respect to the event. This results in an apparent number neutrality and a maximality interpretation of pronouns typical of the E-type strategy. The semantic contribution of nominals is modeled in DRT. We also argue that weak definites in English are interpreted similar to pseudo-incorporated nominals in Persian, and offer an explanation why they are restricted to readings referring to institutionalized activities.

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“…This approach provides us with at the beginnings of a principled approach for understanding why the definite article may appear in some instances (“(be) in the slammer”) but not in others ((be) “in jail”), as with proper names. (See Schwarz (2012) for a detailed working out of something very close to this hypothesis. )…”

Section: Weak Definites: Additional Properties and A Possible Analysismentioning

confidence: 97%

Experimental investigations of weak definite and weak indefinite noun phrases

et al. 2013

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Definite noun phrases typically refer to entities that are uniquely identifiable in the speaker and addressee’s common ground. Some definite noun phrases (e.g. the hospital in Mary had to go the hospital and John did too) seem to violate this uniqueness constraint. We report six experiments that were motivated by the hypothesis that these “weak definite” interpretations arise in “incorporated” constructions. Experiments 1-3 compared nouns that seem to allow for a weak definite interpretation (e.g. hospital, bank, bus, radio) with those that do not (e.g. farm, concert, car, book). Experiments 1 and 2 used an instruction-following task and picture-judgment task, respectively, to demonstrate that a weak definite need not uniquely refer. In Experiment 3 participants imagined scenarios described by sentences such as The Federal Express driver had to go to the hospital/farm. The imagined scenarios following weak definite noun phrases were more likely to include conventional activities associated with the object, whereas following regular nouns, participants were more likely to imagine scenarios that included typical activities associated with the subject; similar effects were observed with weak indefinites. Experiment 4 found that object-related activities were reduced when the same subject and object were used with a verb that does not license weak definite interpretations. In Experiment 5, a science fiction story introduced an artificial lexicon for novel concepts. Novel nouns that shared conceptual properties with English weak definite nouns were more likely to allow weak reference in a judgment task. Experiment 6 demonstrated that familiarity for definite articles and anti- familiarity for indefinite articles applies to the activity associated with the noun, consistent with predictions made by the incorporation analysis.

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How weak and how definite are Weak Definites?

Cited by 48 publications

References 25 publications

Two Kinds of Definites Cross‐linguistically

Two Kinds of Definites Cross‐linguistically

Number Neutrality and Anaphoric Update of Pseudo-Incorporated Nominals in Persian (and Weak Definites in English)

Experimental investigations of weak definite and weak indefinite noun phrases

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