By Andrew Chesterman
This e-book proposes a brand new conception of definiteness in language. It argues that definiteness might be considered as a cover-term comprising 3 uncomplicated oppositions in the components of familiarity (locatability), volume (inclusiveness) and generality (extensivity). extra, the oppositions aren't discrete yet scalar, and lend themselves to characterization by way of fuzzy set idea. Dr. Chesterman examines those issues, to begin with by means of drawing on numerous traditions of analysis at the wealthy approach of articles in English, after which through how the concept that of definiteness is learned in Finnish, a language that has no articles and customarily leaves definiteness to be inferred via numerous potential. On Definiteness presents a radical and delicate dialogue of an complex semantic challenge. It highlights very important theoretical issues: the fuzziness of the linguistic inspiration of definiteness, and the variations between languages within the ways that they draw the road among syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
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Additional info for On Definiteness: A Study with Special Reference to English and Finnish
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Acknowledges that it may often be impossible 41 42 English article usage to decide (out of context, at least) whether a noun with the is a unit-word or a continuate-word. An example would be the cake, in contexts like Did you like the cake? Jespersen also had reservations about the classification, and changed his mind between volume II and volume VII (p. 438) about the status of this wine in sentences like This wine is different from the one we had yesterday. In volume VII he classifies this wine as a countable.
Sentence (98) is not predicated of all Italians; indeed it is actually predicated of a rather small subset of Italians, viz. the furniture-makers. Sentence (99) has an even more limited reference: not to Finns in general but to Finnish ski-jumpers, and only to the cream of these, perhaps only two or three individuals. The appropriate quantifier in each case is thus determined pragmatically (see also Carlson 1977; Kleiber 1985). Genericness is thus not a clear-cut unitary phenomenon, but rather seems to be more of a cover-term for a variety of 'non-particular' kinds of readings.
Quirk et al. ) give a long list of types of count singular common noun which take what they call 'the zero article with definite meaning'. Examples include be captain, in bed, by bus, have lunch, arm in arm. Such uses are said to occur 'only in rather special circumstances'. A further group of singular nouns that are said to take 'no article' are proper nouns (without a restrictive modifier). However, here too there are a host of well-known exceptions: Lake Windermere, Mount Everest but the River Thames, the Baltic Sea, etc.