Definiteness and indefiniteness

The conceptual difference between definite and indefinite expressions is one of the big open problems in the semantic and philosophical literature, and is still extensively discussed (cf. Abbott 2006, 2014, on which the following overview is based; cf. also Lyons 1999 for a general overview).

The basic assumption underlying this discussion is that, in general, all nominal ex-pressions can be classified as either definite or indefinite exex-pressions. Purely intuitively, a nominal expression is seen as definite if it can be used to talk about a particular in-dividual. This individual can be abstract or concrete, and can either be a particular single individual, a particular group of individuals, or a particular mass (Abbott 2014).

Nominal expressions which do not pick out any particular individual are seen as in-definite.⁴² Definite and indefinite descriptions (i.e. the + noun and a + noun) are taken as the prototypical examples of the two classes, while other nominal expressions are classified as definite or indefinite based on their behavior in test contexts which differentiate the prototypical examples.

One of the test contexts for definiteness, which originated from an observation in the syntactic literature, are existential-there sentences. In these sentences, the position after the copula cannot be filled by all types of nominal expressions. Specifically, indef-inite descriptions can occur in the position after the copula while defindef-inite descriptions are ungrammatical in this position, see(67). This is called the “definiteness effect”.

(67) a. There is a man in the garden.

b. *There is the man in the garden.

In analogy, other types of nominal expressions are classified as indefinite if they can occur after the copula in existential-there sentences, see (68). Otherwise, they count as definites, see (69).

(68) a. There is some man in the garden.

b. There are some/several/many/no men in the garden.

(69) a. *There is Bill/it in the garden.

b. *There is that/every/Mary’s man in the garden.

c. *There are all/most (of the) men in the garden.

These results are the basis for the classification in Table 2.5.

definite nominal expressions indefinite nominal expressions personal pronouns, demonstratives,

definite descriptions, possessive noun phrases, proper names, uni-versally quantified noun phrases, partitives

indefinite descriptions, bare nouns, non-universally quantified noun phrases, indefinite “this”

Table 2.5: Definite and indefinite nominal expressions

Milsark (1977) discusses complications of using existential-there sentences as test contexts for definiteness. He argues that some of the nominal expressions that are acceptable in existential-there sentences do not fit the intuition behind definiteness, i.e. reference to a particular individual. To account for this intuitive mismatch, he introduces two new labels, “weak” and “strong”, for expressions that can and cannot

42Abbott(2014) notes that universally quantified noun phrases, partitives, possessive noun phrases, and specific indefinites are problematic for this naive characterization of definiteness. These nominal expressions raise issues—even for more sophisticated formal accounts. Cf.Abbott(2006,2014).

occur in existential-there sentences, respectively.⁴³ Since Milsark’s work, other critical works that claim that the “definiteness effect” found in existential-there sentences is a consequence of other semantic or pragmatic restrictions has been published (cf. Ward and Birner 1995). Nevertheless, the classification given in Table2.5 is still used in the literature to characterize the categories of definite and indefinite nominal expressions (cf. Abbott 2006).

Abbott also expresses reservations regarding another test for definiteness proposed in Jackendoff (1977). Jackendoff argues that only definite expressions may occur as embedded noun phrases in partitives, see (70). He calls this the “partitive constraint”.

(70) some of the apples, few of those options, all of Mary’s dogs (Abbott 2014:11)

Abbott, however, argues that the only requirement partitives place on their embedded noun phrases is that they are interpretable as a group of individuals. Therefore, indef-inite expressions that can be interpreted as a single group can also occur in partitives, see (71).

(71) a. He ate three of some apples he found on the ground.

b. This is one of a number of counterexamples to the PC.

c. Any of several options are open to us at this point.

(Abbott 2014:12)

The only exceptions for this requirement are bare plurals and mass noun phrases, although mass noun phrases can freely occur in mass partitives (cf. Abbott 2014).

(72) a. *Most of books by Chomsky are on politics.

b. *Some of green slime is created by bacteria.

(Abbott 2014:12f)

So, in sum, there in fact does not seem to be a reliablesyntactic test that captures the intuitive difference between definite and indefinite expressions.

In the philosophical and the semantic/pragmatic literature, various attempts were made to reduce the difference between definiteness and indefiniteness to a difference

43A second test context proposed to be sensitive to definiteness is the English have-construction which indicates inalienable possession, see(i).

(i) a. She had a full head of hair.

b. *She had the full head of hair.

(Abbott 2006:5)

As in the case of existential-theresentences, definite descriptions are unacceptable in this construction.

Cf. Abbott(2006).

in more basic contextual or discourse-based properties, most notably uniqueness and familiarity.

The reduction of definiteness to uniqueness of reference has its origins in Russell’s (1905) analysis of definite and indefinite descriptions. Russell proposed that both defi-nite and indefidefi-nite descriptions existentially quantify over individuals, but that defidefi-nite descriptions additionally state that there is only one individual for which the descrip-tion holds. That is, definite expressions require uniqueness of existence. Compare (73-b)and (74-b).

(73) a. A representative arrived.

b. ∃x[representative(x) & arrived(x)]

(Abbott 2014:3)

(74) a. The representative arrived.

b. ∃x[representative(x) & ∀y[representative(y)→x=y] & arrived(x)]

(Abbott 2014:3)

A minor complication that arises for this account is that uniqueness of existence seems to be too strong as a defining property of definiteness. In its strict formulation in (74-b), it is practically never given in the world. Therefore, the uniqueness requirement is usually contextually restricted to a relevant domain (cf.Abbott 2014on the “problem of incomplete definite descriptions”).

The uniqueness account of definiteness is independent of Russell’s quantificational analysis of definite and indefinite descriptions. FollowingFrege(1892),Strawson(1950) argues that the requirement that asks for uniqueness of existence for definites is not part of the asserted content of definite descriptions, but is presupposed.

(75) a. The representative arrived.

b. arrived(ιx[representative(x)])

Theι-term,ιx[representative(x)], presupposes that there is only one individualx such that x is a representative. If this requirement is met, ι-term refers to this unique individual. In contrast to Russell’s analysis, Strawson’s formal analysis of definite de-scriptions is non-quantificational. Theι-term directly contributes the unique individual to which the descriptive content applies.

There are various reasons to prefer analyses of definite descriptions in which unique-ness is presupposed. For example, sentential negation cannot affect the requirement of uniqueness of existence for the referent of the definite descriptions. Consider(76-a).

(76) a. The representative didn’t arrive.

b. Frege/Strawson: ¬arrived(ιx[representative(x)])

c. Russell: ¬∃x[representative(x) & ∀y[representative(y)→x=y] &

arrived(x)]

The Frege/Strawson analysis for (76-a) in(76-b) captures the behavior of the unique-ness requirement relative to sentential negation. Russell’s analysis in (76-c), however, predicts that example (76-a)can be used as an objection toThe representative arrived in case more than one representative arrived.

The main competitor of the semantic uniqueness account for definiteness is Heim’s (1988 [1982]) familiarity approach. Heim assumes that the semantic contribution of definite and indefinite descriptions is the same. Both types of expressions contribute variables restricted to their descriptive content. The difference between the two types of noun phrases is that indefinite descriptions always introduce new discourse referents while definite descriptions require their referents to have been introduced beforehand.

These requirements of novelty and familiarity of reference are also seen as presupposed in the context.

Heim’s presuppositional account of familiarity runs into problems with “semantic definite descriptions” (also called “role-type definite descriptions”). These are definite descriptions for which the descriptive contentper se already determines a unique refer-ent. Contrary to “pragmatic/incomplete definite descriptions”, which signal uniqueness in the context of utterance, semantic definite description can be used to introduce new discourse referents (cf. L¨obner 1985). For instance, the referent of the definite descrip-tion the new curling center at MSU in example (77) is uniquely determined by the descriptive content new curling center at MSU.

(77) The new curling center at MSU, which you probably haven’t heard of, is the first of its kind.

(Abbott 2014:6)

Abbott argues that this problem for the familiarity account cannot be solved by invok-ing presupposition accommodation since this would take away all of the account’s pre-dictive power: “Definites denote familiar entities unless they don’t.” (Abbott 2014:6).⁴⁴ As an alternative to the familiarity requirement, Abbott (2014) aims to weaken the uniqueness requirement for some nominal expressions, and contrasts two types of uniqueness: (i) semantic uniqueness and (ii) referential uniqueness. Semantic unique-ness corresponds to Russell’s uniqueunique-ness of existence in the context; it is a semantic requirement placed on the utterance context. Referential uniqueness is a pragmatic property that applies to expressions used by the speaker to refer to a particular entity that he expects to be identifiable for the addressee.

For most definite nominal expressions, referential uniqueness is the variant which

44But see for instanceGeurts(2010) for a defense of definiteness as presupposing givenness.

captures their behavior best: definite descriptions, proper names, personal pronouns, and demonstratives are referentially unique, but only proper names can be said to show semantic uniqueness.

Since Abbott’s classification is based on intuitive characteristics connected to def-initeness, as well as on results of tests which have been shown to depend on other semantic and/or pragmatic properties, it seems unclear to me what the conceptual insight is that follows from Abbott’s conclusion. To my mind, the only conclusion that can be drawn at this point is that some nominal expressions share the property of referential uniqueness, and that definite descriptions—however referential uniqueness is spelled out in detail—are part of this class of expressions. Nevertheless for the rest of this section, I take referential uniqueness as the definition of definiteness, and classify all other expressions as indefinite.

One complicating factor for using Abbott’s results on (in)definiteness in the discus-sion of the (in)definiteness problem is thatAbbott (2006,2014) explicitly excludes all non-referential uses of nominal expressions from the discussion. That is, she explicitly leaves aside bound uses of pronominal expressions and nominal expressions in generic sentences. Hence, Abbott’s concept of definiteness can only be applied to the referen-tial use of personal pronouns—which is classified as definite—and to the existenreferen-tial use of impersonal pronouns—which is classified as indefinite.

In contrast to Abbott, Lyons (1999) also considers nominal expressions in generic sentences. He argues that the meaning that is assigned to these expressions in generic sentences is independent of the definite/indefinite distinction.

Lyons introduces two new classificatory properties for definite expressions: identifia-bility and inclusiveness. Identifiability can, more or less, be equated with the property of referential uniqueness proposed by Abbott. Inclusiveness, on the other hand, refers to the observation that plural definite descriptions and definite mass descriptions refer to the maximal plurality of individuals that satisfy their descriptive content. Together, these two properties determine semantic definiteness. In contrast, a nominal expression is syntactically (in)definite if it has an (in)definite form and behaves morphosyntacti-cally like an indefinite expression.

Following Krifka et al.(1995), Lyons distinguishes two classes of generic noun phra-ses:⁴⁵ (i) generic noun phrases that express generalizations about a plurality of individ-uals as a whole, i.e. a kind, and (ii) generic noun phrases that express a generalization about the members of a plurality individually.

English allows for a “generic interpretation” of definite singular noun phrases, in-definite singular noun phrases, and bare plurals. Definite plural noun phrases are not

45Krifka et al.(1995) use the label “generic noun phrase” only for noun phrases that receive a kind reading. All other noun phrases are called “object-referring”.

available in general, but may be “interpreted generically” with nationalities and with nouns denoting classes of classes.

(78) a. Dogs are mammals. (bare plural subject)

b. A dog is a mammal. (indefinite singular subject) c. The dog is a mammal. (definite singular subject) d. The Germans like beer. (definite plural subject) Of these noun phrases, definite singular noun phrases and bare plurals can be used as kind-referring expressions; bare plurals and indefinite singular noun phrases can be used to generalize over the members of a plurality.

Regarding (in)definiteness, Lyons argues that all generic noun phrases show a similar behavior and distribution to definite noun phrases—independently of their class and morphological make up. He provides the following three diagnostic test contexts (Lyons 1999:197).

(79) a. Big as the/*a boy was, he couldn’t lift it.

b. Big as an elephant is, we’ll find room for Nellie here.

c. Big as elephants are, you’ll never get one to lift that load.

(80) a. The/?A house is mine.

b. Surely a letter is mine if it’s addressed to me.

c. ‘Vengeance is mine’ said the president.

(81) a. Is there a/?the dictionary in the house?

b. Is there a lion in Africa?

c. Are there dolphins on the verge of extinction?

Lyons suggests that the tests in (79) and (80) show that generically interpreted sin-gular indefinite descriptions and bare plurals pattern like non-generic definite descrip-tions. For instance, the definiteness test in (81), which is an instance of the test using existential-there sentences, seems to support this result since the indefinite noun phrases in (81-b) and (81-c) cannot be interpreted generically.

From these three tests, Lyons concludes that even though generic bare plurals and generic indefinite singular noun phrases are syntactically indefinite—they have an in-definite morphological form—they are semantically in-definite. Lyons further argues that semantic definiteness for generic noun phrases is expected since “their reference is to a whole ensemble”, and “they can perhaps also be said to be familiar”, i.e. they observe inclusiveness and identifiability (Lyons 1999:198).

For my part, I have doubts regarding the conclusions that can be drawn from Lyons’s test contexts.⁴⁶ More importantly, however, I do not see how non-kind-referring noun

46When Lyons introduces these tests earlier on in the book, he states that they are not very

reli-phrases in generic sentences observe either inclusiveness or identifiability. As Krifka et al. (1995) argue, generic sentences express quasi-universal quantification over the members of the set described by the noun phrase in subject position. One notable property of quasi-universal quantification introduced by the generic operator is that it allows for exceptions. This means that quasi-universally quantified noun phrases are not inclusive in the same way as the plural definite article or true universal quantifica-tion. Identifiability is also not given since the exceptions to a generalization do not have to be identifiable (cf.Greenberg 2007). As a result, the plurality of individuals that the generic sentence generalizes over not strictly identifiable either. Hence, Lyons’ charac-teristic properties for definiteness seem to fail for non-kind-referring noun phrases in generics, and for similar reasons Abbott’s referential uniqueness fails, as well.⁴⁷

In contrast to non-kind-referring noun phrases in generics, kind-referring noun phra-ses seems to be identifiable even though they also allow for particular, exceptional individuals. Consequently—with respect to Abbott’s characterization of definiteness—

kind-referring noun phrases in generic sentences can be classified as definite expressions.

As shown in Section 2.2, however, impersonally used impersonal pronouns cannot be combined with kind predicates. Therefore, they fall into the class of non-kind-referring generic expressions, see (82).

(82) a. #/*Man one

ist is

als as

Dodo dodo

ausgestorben.

extinct Unavailable: ‘Dodos are extinct.’

b. One is extinct.

Unavailable: ‘People/humans are extinct.’⁴⁸

Hence, I conclude that impersonal pronouns in their impersonal use should be classified as indefinite expressions.⁴⁹

Even though this conclusion seems to be intuitively valid, it ignores a central ob-servation from the literature on generic sentences: quasi-universal quantification over individuals is not contributed by the noun phrase, but is introduced by the covert generic operator. The indefinite noun phrases are argued to contribute only free vari-ables ranging over the set of individuals for which the descriptive content holds (cf.

Krifka et al. 1995); in other words, indefinite noun phrases in generic sentences are modelled as Heimian indefinites (cf. Heim 1988 [1982]). Hence, if the impersonal uses

able, and provides various counterexamples (Lyons 1999:16f). The low reliability of existential-there sentences was also mentioned earlier in this section.

47Similar arguments to the ones given for non-kind-referring noun phrases in generics are usually given to argue for the indefiniteness ofmost andany. Cf.Abbott(2006)

48The only reading that is available for this sentence involves one being interpreted as a numeral, referring to one of several salient kinds.

49Lyons (1999:186) proposes that Englishone and its corresponding forms in other languages can be analyzed as indefinite singular generics with “arbitrary” human reference. This means that Lyons effectively groups impersonal pronouns with non-kind-referring expressions, as well.

of personal and impersonal pronouns are modelled in analogy to indefinite noun phrases in generic sentences, their quantificational force is also contributed by the generic op-erator, and their (in)definiteness is not directly perceivable. So in sum, if a unified account for all uses of personal and impersonal pronouns is aimed for, the presence of the generic operator may not be hard-wired in the respective lexical entries.⁵⁰

Given this result, how can the (in)definiteness of personal and impersonal pronouns in their impersonal use be determined? I argue that one does not have access to hints regarding their (in)definiteness apart from comparisons of their behavior with that of bare plurals and indefinite singular noun phrases in generic sentences. And these expressions have been argued to be syntactically and semantically indefinite when they occur in episodic sentences.

2.4.3 (In)definiteness and quantificational variability

An indefiniteness test that frequently discussed in the recent semantic literature is the possibility of quantificational variability effects with adverbs of quantification. Lewis (1975) first observed that sentences containing indefinite descriptions and adverbs of quantification show a peculiar behavior: rather than quantifying over situations, times, or eventualities, the adverb seems to quantify directly over the individuals denoted by the indefinite description; consider (83).

(83) a. A basketball player is sometimes short.

∼ Some basketball players are short.

b. Basketball players are sometimes short.

∼ Some basketball players are short.

This effect does not arise with definite descriptions, proper names, and referentially used personal pronouns, see (84).

(84) a. #The basketball player over there is sometimes short.

b. #Peter is sometimes short.

c. #He is sometimes short.

In the only interpretation that is available for the sentences in (84), the adverb some-times quantifies over situations, which suggests that the height of an individual may vary over time.

50If the generic operator were to be hard-wired in the lexical entry of an impersonal pronoun, a rule of “generic disclosure”, similar to “existential disclosure”, would be needed to account for the referential and existential uses, and the observed quantificational variability effects (cf.Dekker 1993).

A genuine unified account which does not need to stipulate a rule of this kind is arguably more elegant.

Note, however, that this argument still crucially relies on the assumption that all uses of personal and impersonal pronouns are associated with the same lexical entry.

The reliability of this diagnostic has been questioned recently in Hinterwimmer (2005) and Endriss and Hinterwimmer (2006). Hinterwimmer and Endriss and Hin-terwimmer argue that quantificational variability(-like) effects are also observable for singular and plural definite descriptions. They give the following examples.

(85) Paul HATES going to jazz-concerts: The PIANO-player always flirts with his

(85) Paul HATES going to jazz-concerts: The PIANO-player always flirts with his

Im Dokument Impersonally Interpreted Personal Pronouns (Seite 128-140)