From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Sat Jan 03 1998 - 13:45:26 EST
Paul,
This is not a direct reply to your message, but an attempt to start
exploring some other possible ways of determining definiteness. The Lexicon
of Linguistics ("http://wwwots.let.ruu.nl/~Hans.Leidekker/lexicon/ll.html")
does suggest at least one test for definiteness in English - they use the
terms "strong noun phrase" and "weak noun phrase":
Definiteness restriction
SYNTAX/SEMANTICS: the restriction that the subject of a sentence beginning
with ¡expletive there, must be an
indefinite noun phrase, or in Milsark's (1977) terms, a ¡weak noun phrase.
The definiteness restriction is shown by
the contrast between (i) and (ii): the ¡strong noun phrases in (i) are not
compatible with expletive there.
(i) a *There is John/the man/every man in the room
b *There are they/the people/most people in the room
(ii) a There is a man/one man in the room
b There are men/two men/many men in the room
Strong noun phrase
SEMANTICS: a noun phrase that is excluded (by the ¡definiteness
restriction) as the subject of a ¡there-insertion sentence. The term was
introduced by Milsark (1977) to cover both ordinary definite noun phrases
like the boy, but also proper names, pronouns, and quantified noun phrases
like every boy and most boys. Milsark (1977)
characterizes strong noun phrases as noun phrases that can not be
existentially quantified by there, either because they are proper names or
pronouns or because they are already quantified (by the, those, every etc.).
LIT. Milsark (1977).
Weak noun phrase
SEMANTICS: a noun phrase that can be used as the subject of a
¡there-insertion sentence:
(i) There was NP in the room
The term was introduced by Milsark (1977) as a more general term for
indefinite noun phrases. Besides traditional indefinites like a boy and
boys, noun phrases like one boy, some boys, two boys or many boys are also
weak. Milsark (1977) characterizes weak noun phrases as noun phrases that
are not quantified, although they may contain
indications of cardinality (like two, some and many). Being not quantified
inherently, they can be existentially quantified by there.
LIT. Milsark (1977).
This makes me wonder whether similar tests could be found for Greek. It
also makes me wonder if part of our problem is that we should be looking
for characteristics of the whole noun phrase, not characteristics of the
noun itself. In other words, perhaps "is this noun indefinite" is the wrong
question, and therefore unanswerable; "is this noun phrase 'weak'" may be a
more answerable and meaningful question.
Just a thought...
Jonathan
___________________________________________________________________________
Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com
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