Weak definites refer to kinds

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of weak definites (e.g. to answer the phone) as introduced by Carlson and Sussman (2005). The proposal is that these definites refer to kinds, which are instantiated by ordinary individuals when they combine with object-level predicates. This combination is made possible by a lexical rule that lifts object-level predicates to kind-level predicates, and incorporates into their denotation a predicate that represents the stereotypical usages of the kinds. This analysis accounts for most of the peculiar properties of weak definites.