Indefinite Determiner Research Articles

When “one” can be “two”: Cross-linguistic differences affect children’s interpretation of the numeral one

In English, a lexical distinction is drawn between the indefinite determiner “a” and the numeral “one”. English-speaking children also interpret the two terms differently, with an exact, upper bounded interpretation of the numeral “one”, but no upper bounded interpretation of the indefinite determiner “a”. Unlike English, however, German does not draw a distinction between the indefinite determiner and the numeral one but instead uses the same term “ein/e” to express both functions. To find out whether this cross-linguistic difference affects children’s upper bounded interpretation of “ein/e”, we tested German-speaking children and adults in a truth-value-judgment task and compared their performance to English-speaking children. Our results revealed that German-speaking children differed from both English children and German adults. Whereas the majority of German adults interpreted “ein/e” in an upper bounded way (i.e. as exactly one, not two), the majority of German-speaking children favored a non-upper bounded interpretation (thus accepting two as a valid response to “ein/e”). German-speaking children’s proportion of upper bounded responses to “ein/e” was also significantly lower than English children’s upper bounded responses to “one”. However, German children’s rate of upper bounded responses increased once a number-biasing context was provided. These findings suggest that German-speaking children can interpret “ein/e” in an upper bounded way but that they need additional cues in order to do so. When no such cues are present, German-speaking children differ from both German-speaking adults and from their English-speaking peers, demonstrating that cross-linguistic differences can affect the way speakers interpret numbers.

Pragmatic processing: An investigation of the (anti-)presuppositions of determiners using mouse-tracking

A presupposition is a condition that has to be met in order for a linguistic expression to be appropriate. The definite determiner (as in the banana) triggers the uniqueness-presupposition that there is a uniquely identifiable banana in the relevant discourse context. The indefinite determiner (as in a banana) is similarly associated with anti-uniqueness (that there are several bananas). Application of the Maximize Presupposition principle to the indefinite determiner suggests that this latter effect results indirectly as an anti-presupposition from considering the uniqueness-presupposition of the definite determiner, which is then negated. This results in increased processing difficulty. We utilized mouse-tracking to compare processing of definite and indefinite determiners when used felicitously and infelicitously in a particular context. First, processing of the indefinite determiner was associated with more processing difficulties compared with the definite determiner. Second, we also observed evidence for an initial temporary activation and evaluation of the uniqueness-presupposition, just as derived from anti-presupposition theory and the Maximize Presupposition principle.

Discourse management during speech perception: A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study

Discourse structures enable us to generate expectations based upon linguistic material that has already been introduced. We investigated how the required cognitive operations such as reference processing, identification of critical items, and eventual handling of violations correlate with neuronal activity within the language network of the brain. To this end, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which we manipulated spoken discourse coherence by using presuppositions (PSPs) that either correspond or fail to correspond to items in preceding context sentences. Definite and indefinite determiners were used as PSP triggers, referring to (non-) uniqueness or (non-) existence of an item. Discourse adequacy was tested by means of a behavioral rating during fMRI. Discourse violations yielded bilateral hemodynamic activation within the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the inferior parietal lobe including the angular gyrus (IPL/AG), the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), and the basal ganglia (BG). These findings illuminate cognitive aspects of PSP processing: (1) a reference process requiring working memory (IFG), (2) retrieval and integration of semantic/pragmatic information (IPL/AG), (3) cognitive control of inconsistency management (pre-SMA/BG) in terms of “successful” comprehension despite PSP violations at the surface. These results provide the first fMRI evidence needed to develop a functional neuroanatomical model for context-dependent sentence comprehension based on the example of PSP processing.

Representation and selection of determiners with phonological variants.

The aim of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of cross-linguistic differences in the time course of determiner selection during language production. In Germanic languages, participants are slower at naming a picture using a determiner + noun utterance (die Katze "the cat") when a superimposed distractor is of a different gender (gender congruency effect). In Romance languages in which the pronunciation of the determiner also depends on the phonology of the next word, there is no such effect. This difference is traditionally assumed to arise because determiners are selected later in Romance languages (late selection hypothesis). It has further been suggested that in a given language, all determiners are either selected late or early (maximum consistency principle). Data on French have challenged these 2 hypotheses by revealing a gender congruency effect when participants name pictures using the definite singular determiner le-la (l' before vowels) and a noun, at positive stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), that is, when there is a delay between the presentation of the picture and that of the distractor. We examined this finding further and investigated whether it generalizes to the indefinite determiner un-une. Results of 4 picture-word interference experiments reveal that gender congruency effects in French are not restricted to the definite determiner or positive SOAs, but can be hard to detect in experiments which do not account for the variability in reading and naming times across participants and trials. We discuss the implications of these results for the modeling of determiner selection across languages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Kiitharaka Event and Result Nominals

This paper explores the subject of event and results nominals and finds that the two can easily be distinguished in Kîîtharaka. Kîîtharaka event nominals are in form of infinitive construction while result nominals are ordinary nouns. The paper argues that there is a parametric variation between these nominals in English and Kîîtharaka. While English event nominals disallow modification by indefinite determiners but allow definite determiners, Kîîtharaka counterparts disallow modification by any form of determiners. Keywords : Kîîtharaka, nominals. DOI : 10.7176/JLLL/57-04 Publication date :June 30 th 2019

On the cardinal system in Italian Sign Language (LIS)

This paper offers a comprehensive discussion of the cardinal numeral system of Italian Sign Language. At the lexical level, we present the different formational strategies used to generate cardinal numerals and we provide evidence that in the younger generations of signers, the signonehas lost the function of indefinite determiner and is now used as a cardinal only. At the syntactic level, we show that the attested variation in the ordering between the cardinal and the noun is in part due to definiteness and contrastive focus. We account for this variation within the cartographic approach to syntax. Finally, we offer a principled explanation for the reason why cardinals inside Measure Phrases are not subject to word order variation, but always precede the measure noun.

R-impersonals in Hong Kong Sign Language

AbstractThis paper discusses R-impersonals in Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL). As evidenced in our questionnaire and conversation data, R-impersonals in HKSL typically make use of null forms, the non-specific indefinite determiner (i.e.,onedet-path(someone)/onedet-path(anyone)), distinguished by non-manual markers), and, occasionally, the Chinese character signhuman/person. HKSL does not show impersonal uses of personal pronouns (e.g.,they, you) which are commonly found in spoken languages. The nominal strategies are determined by the contexts and the referential properties of the impersonal referents, and they differ in the use of space in representing the impersonal referents in subsequent discourse. R-impersonal referents encoded byonedet-path(someone)/onedet-path(anyone) are associated with an area of the upper part of the ipsilateral side of the signing space, but they can still be assigned to a specific locus if the subsequent discourse requires locative information. Impersonal referents introduced by null forms or the Chinese character signhuman/personare typically not spatially anchored.

Some three students: towards a unified account of some

This paper investigates the semantics of the some+numeral construction (e.g. Some 20 cars were involved in the accident). Contra previous analyses, we demonstrate that some+numeral is not inherently approximating, but instead can be aligned to the canonical use of some as an indefinite determiner. Drawing on estab- lished theories of the semantics of degree expressions and epistemic indefinites, we propose that on all of its uses, some encodes a domain-shifting function, which op- erates on sets of pluralities of some sort. We demonstrate that this analysis accounts for both the variable presence of an approximating effect as well as constraints on the distribution of some+numeral, and discuss some consequences for the semantics of number and degree, and for the treatment of some more generally.

Exclusive Particles in Ga (Kwa)

Exclusive particles, which have been attested in a wide range of languages, give rise to a rank-order interpretation and/or to an exhaustive interpretation. Based on novel data from Ga, the paper identifies an exclusive particle that not only gives rise to the exhaustive meaning but also operates on an NP denotation allowing, for example, plural count nouns to be combined with an indefinite determiner which encodes the cardinality ‘one’. In particular, the paper shows that the Ga exclusive particle too functions as Landman's (1989, 2010, 2013) group-forming operator. The Ga data thus extend the typology of exclusive particles and point to a previously unattested variation in the semantics of exclusives in a cross-linguistic perspective.

How (Not) to Elide Negation

AbstractThis paper examines the behavior of English negative indefinites under VP ellipsis. The main empirical observation is that negative indefinites cannot take scope out of a verbal ellipsis site. We propose that negative indefinites involve fusion under adjacency between the clausal polarity head and an indefinite determiner and that this adjacency comes about under multidominance. Multidominance can feed the morphological coalescence of two syntactic terminals that on the surface do not appear to be linearly adjacent. The claim that there is a morphological relation between these two heads—rather than a syntactic one—is supported by the fact that it can be bled by ellipsis. Given that ellipsis is a process at Phonological Form (PF), it can block fusion, thus preventing high scope of negative indefinites out of an ellipsis site.

Three Types of Indefinites in Persian: Simple, Complex, and Antidefinite

This paper investigates three indefinite constructions in Persian: simple (ye-NP), complex (ye-NP-i), and antidefinite (NP-i). It shows that simple indefinites with the determiner ye carry an at-issue existence implication (|NP| ≥ 1), similar to their English counterpart with the indefinite determiner a(n). Complex indefinites with both ye and -i introduce an antisingleton implication (|NP| > 1), similar to Spanish indefinites with algún. Antidefinites with only the clitic -i are a novel category which trigger a projective non-uniqueness implication (|NP| ̸= 1). The paper provides a compositional account in which the antisingleton implication of complex indefinites is derived from the existence implication of the determiner "ye" and the non-uniqueness implication of the clitic "-i". The predictions of this account as well as the pragmatic effects of complex indefinites such as ignorance, indifference, free choice, and domain widening implications are discussed.

Adjetivos intensificadores no Português Brasileiro: propriedades, distribuição e reflexos morfológicos

RESUMO Neste artigo, analisamos as propriedades e a distribuição dos adjetivos intensificadores no português brasileiro, tendo em vista suas propriedades morfossintáticas, sintáticas e semânticas. Submetemos os dados a testes com o propósito de verificar seu comportamento em relação à ordem, definitude, e tipo de sentenças e sintagmas em que ocorrem. A partir disso, propomos algumas generalizações com relação à sua distribuição: (i) são exclusivamente prepostos, (ii) ocorrem em sintagmas definidos e indefinidos, (iii) ocorrem em sentenças exclamativas, e (iv) podem ser empregados em contextos de duplicação de determinante em sintagmas nominais indefinidos. No que concerne à categoria lexical que modificam, observamos a formação de dois subgrupos: aqueles que modificam apenas nomes (viz., baita, bruta, senhor(a), puta) e aqueles que modificam nomes e palavras de outra natureza categorial (viz., mega, hiper, super). Essas considerações nos fornecem um conjunto de informações sobre a controversa natureza morfológica de mega, hiper e super. Embora sejam tratados como prefixos, argumentamos que essa análise não é plausível. Em contrapartida, sugerimos que tais formas sejam consideradas adjetivos autônomos. Essa assunção, por sua vez, permite-nos explicar facilmente formações como supermercado, mega-feirão e hipercorreção, analisando-as como compostos de combinação categorial A-N, contrariamente ao que a literatura vem assumindo.

Possessive predicational vocatives in Scandinavian

Scandinavian is known to have vocative phrases that contain a possessive second person pronoun and a noun, and possibly also one or more adjectives, as in the Norwegian example din lille fjott, which means ‘you little dork’ although din is formally identical to the possessive pronoun for second person singular. In this paper, I will show that possessive predicational vocatives, as I call them, involve a predication which is parallel to ordinary predicational structures where the noun is marked with an indefinite determiner, as du er en liten fjott ‘you are a little dork’. The two constructions are semantically similar and place identical restrictions on nouns. It can also be shown that the pronominal element that appears in the possessive predicational vocative is not actually possessive. On my analysis this pronoun is the combined spellout of a pronominal element that is the subject of the predication and an indefinite element in the predicate. On this point, my analysis is closely related to earlier analyses of the construction, but it goes against analyses that take the noun in the possessive predicational vocative to be the subject of the predication underlyingly.

Czech language minority in the South-eastern Romanian Banat

AbstractThis article concerns a Czech language minority living in the south-western Romanian region of Banat. First an overview of the situation of Banatian Czech speakers is given, both from a historical and a contemporary perspective, followed by a sociolinguistically focused description of the linguistic conditions present in this language island. Next, the article examines seven syntactic and morphosyntactic structures found in Bígr Czech, namely three word order phenomena, use of the indefinite determiner, totality quantifiers and prepositional phenomena. Using the specialized corpora, BANAT for Banatian Czech (BC) and the ORAL corpus for Common Czech (CC), the BC and CC structures are compared to reveal that some of the investigated features previously assigned as characteristic for Bígr Czech are equally present in Common Czech spoken in the Czech Republic.

L’accord sujet-verbe en français contemporain

This article presents an analysis of synchronic variation and diachronic change in verbal agreement with the French noun foule. This noun, like many collective nouns in French and other languages, can show variation between singular and plural verbal agreement (la foule des habitants exulteSING de joie dans les rues vs. une foule de gens pressés s’attardentPLU). A novel combination of data, including data from sociolinguistic interviews, a gap-fill exercise, and a corpus of written French, is used to investigate this variation and change, to elucidate some of the factors that play a role in this type of agreement, and to examine the differences between this form used with the definite and indefinite determiner (la foule vs. une foule). Some theoretical issues concerning the definition of collective nouns are also addressed.

A Feature-based Contrastive Approach to the L2 Acquisition of Specificity

This study examined the acquisition of the Russian indefinite determiners (kakoj-to ‘which-to’ and kakoj-nibud’ ‘which-nibud’) encoding scopal specificity by English and Korean native speakers within the feature-based contrastive framework (Lardiere 2008, 2009). The specificity markers kakoj-to and kakoj-nibud’ are reflections of different values of three major nominal features definiteness, scopal specificity, and referentiality. The learning task for each functional item differs with respect to mapping and re-configuration of the feature combinations. Our experimental data suggest that the morpheme kakoj-to was acquired early since English (some) and Korean (eotteon ‘some’) have the corresponding morphemes with the same featural representation as the Russian kakoj-to. The morpheme kakoj-nibud’ presented a greater difficulty since its featural make-up is not overtly realized in English or Korean, that is, learners had to re-assemble the target feature set. Such developmental patterns provide evidence that feature re-assembly poses a challenge in second language acquisition. On the basis of the findings, pedagogical implications are discussed

O zastosowaniach "Eksperymentalnego korpusu polsko-litewskiego" w badaniach nad polszczyzną współczesną oraz w teoretycznych polsko-litewskich badaniach konfrontatywnych

Applications of the experimental Polish-Lithuanian corpus /EkorpPL-LT/ in research on the contemporary Polish language and in theoretical Polish-Lithuanian contrastive studiesThe experimental Polish-Lithuanian corpus is an extended tool put into effect at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, first of all with a view to contrastive studies and the structure of the planned Polish-Lithuanian electronic dictionary. The potential recipients of EKorpPL-LT (obviously apart from linguists) can comprise computer specialists (dealing with computer processing of a language), literary scholars, library science specialists, pedagogues, educationalists, teachers, translators, students. Bi- and multilingual corpora are irreplaceable and indispensable in the process of studying a foreign language.In the article, basing on the examples of several problems, possible ways to apply EKorpPL-LT have been presented. During the experiments carried out it turned out that the parallel corpus is not only an excellent tool for comparison and contrast, but also an instrument allowing to look at every language from a different perspective. Without the perspective it would not be possible to say much about Polish and Lithuanian indicative pronouns, indefinite determiners, dual forms or the vocative case. If it were not for the information based on corpora resources, nobody would be aware that the language of Polish instructions of convenience appliances is not only a commercial effect, but above all an element of the state’s concern for the Polish language.

El valor de cierto como determinante

En este trabajo se presenta un análisis dirigido a encontrar el valor semántico que tiene cierto en posición prenominal, en su uso mexicano. A partir de estudios que le anteceden, se argumenta con base en el análisis de un corpus y se llega a la conclusión de que se trata de un determinante indefinido que introduce una propiedad no explícita, que permite lecturas específicas y no específicas desde un punto de vista extensional.DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.15304/verba.41.1139

Some People

This paper integrates methods associated with language socialization and pragmatics to examine how participants in one middle school dance program use the indefinitely referential language of ‘some people’ as a robust resource for socializing embodied competencies related to dance, linguistic competencies related to the ability to use ‘some people’ in indexically and pragmatically complex ways, cognitive competencies related to error-correction and problem-solving, and social-moral competencies related to responsibility-taking. A key argument is that the referential vagueness inherent in ‘some’ as an indefinite determiner contributes fundamentally to the usefulness of ‘some people’ as a language socialization resource in this community of practice.

When the polar bear encounters many polar bears: event-related potential context effects evoked by uniqueness failure

When essential context information is not given in a discourse, understanding mostly fails. By means of event-related brain potentials we investigated what happens when the definite determiner does not find a unique referent in the context or when the appropriate use of the indefinite determiner is violated by the presence of an already introduced referent. The misuse of the determiners evoked an N400/P600 complex immediately upon reading the determiners. Since this result was the same for both determiners, we suggest that initial cognitive processes are similar and include the detection of a mismatch, triggering an N400, followed by a top-down monitoring process, indexed by a P600. This latter process presumably involves the evaluation of possible alternative sentence interpretations which might preserve the sentence's meaning. We hypothesise that theoretically assumed processing differences between the two determiners might occur at a later time point in processing.