Indefinite Noun Phrases Research Articles

Children's Use of Generics in Inductive Inferences

What conditions foster or constrain children's category-based induction? This study examined the role of language, specifically the scope of noun phrases used to convey novel property information. We focused on generic noun phrases, which are especially common in child-directed speech and have been argued to play an important role in the growth of category knowledge. In Study 1, 4-year-olds and adults were taught novel properties about familiar categories, using 1 of 3 types of wording: a generic noun phrase (e.g., "Bears like to eat ants"), a universally quantified noun phrase (e.g., "All bears like to eat ants"), or an indefinite plural noun phrase (e.g., "Some bears like to eat ants"). Study 2 was a follow-up study with adults using a more sensitive task. Results indicated sensitivity to type of wording among both preschoolers and adults, with "all" eliciting the most inferences, "some" eliciting the fewest inferences, and generics in between "all" and "some." However, children made fewer category-based inferences from generics than did adults. Together, these studies suggest that (a) preschool children as well as adults distinguish generics from both "all" and "some," and (b) age differences exist in the interpretation of generic noun phrases.

Meaning and Use of Indefinite Expressions

Sentences containing pronouns and indefinite noun phrases can be said to express open propositions, propositions which display gaps to be filled. This paper addresses the question what is the lingu...

Definiteness and reflexivity

This paper examines the use of definite and indefinite noun phrases in everyday conversations in Finnish and English to establish meaning and to alter and build context in interaction. The paper shows that participants in conversation use the formal contrast between definite and indefinite NPs not only to express identifiability and non-identifiability of the referent to their addressees, but that they also use it dynamically to make claims about socially shared reality, to create referents in discourse and to build a novel identity for existing referents, to actively construct frames and create roles within them, and to reorganize the participant structure of a speech event.

Dynamics and Pragmatics of 'Peirce's Puzzle'

An intriguing puzzle due to Charles Sanders Peirce (Peirce 1906) has recently regained the interest of semanticists. It has been argued that the puzzle should be analysed by means of a dynamic or E-type analysis of non-bound pronouns. In this paper we first argue that Peirce's Puzzle', basically, doesn't have anything to do with non-bound pronouns and that, consequently, a dynamic or E-type analysis of pronouns misses the point. We next show that Peirce's own, intuitively correct, observations can be seen to follow from independently motivated principles governing the use of indefinite noun phrases. The puzzle constitutes further motivation for a perspective on the semantics/pragmatic interface recently under development in a dynamic setting.

SENTENCE MOOD CONSTITUTION AND INDEFINITE NOUN PHRASES

Sentence mood in German is a complex category that is determined by various components of the grammatical system. Verbal mood, the position of the finite verb and the wh-characteristics of the so-called 'Vorfeld'-phrase in particular play a prominent role in constituting sentence mood in German. This article proposes a theory of sentence mood constitution in German and investigates the interaction determined by binding theory between pronouns and indefinite noun phrases which are semantically analysed as choice functions. It is shown that the semantic objects determined by sentence mood define different kinds of domains which have to be uniquely accessible as the range of the choice function. The various properties of the pronominal binding of indefinites can be derived by the interplay of the proposed theoretical notions.

Um especificador aí

Neste estudo, tratamos do aí modificador de sintagmas nominais indefinidos, que parece acrescentar um traço de especificidade ao SN ao qual modifica, semelhantemente ao que faz o certo. Com base em análises realizadas por Hintikka (1986) e Enç (1991) sobre o certain do inglês, comparamos sentenças com aí e certo especificadores, pretendendo demonstrar que eles manifestam equivalência de traços semânticos, mas tendem a conduzir a implicaturas conversacionais diferenciadas.

Sentence mood constitution and indefinite noun phrases

Sentence mood in German is a complex category that is determined by various components of the grammatical system. In particular, verbal mood, the position of the finite verb and the wh-characteristics of the so called 'Vorfeld'-phrase are responsible for the constitution of sentence mood in German. This article proposes a theory of sentence mood constitution in German and investigates the interaction between the pronominal binding of indefinite noun phrases which are semantically analyzed as choice functions. It is shown that the semantic objects determined by sentence mood define different kinds of domains which have to be uniquely accessible as the range of the choice function. The various properties of the pronominal binding of indefinites can be derived by the interplay of the proposed theoretical notions.

Indefinites between Predication and Reference

No abstract.

In Search of Gender Recency: Evidence from the Production of Pronouns

This study investigated whether retrieval of a noun's grammatical gender benefits from having retrieved that information recently. In response to picture stimuli, participants produced gender-marked pronouns under various priming conditions. The primes differed in that they either necessitated retrieval of grammatical gender (indefinite noun phrase/pronoun) or did not (noun); when they required gender retrieval, they varied in whether they involved access to the same morpheme (pronoun) or a different morpheme (indefinite noun phrase). Relative to an unprimed condition, faster responses were obtained in each condition. Pronoun primes facilitated pronoun naming more than the other prime types, but no difference was observed between noun primes and indefinite noun phrase primes. Thus, although the experiment was sensitive to priming processes, there was no evidence for morpheme-independent gender priming.

The semantic function of chained pronouns

The pronouns in (1), if used non-demonstratively, are anaphoric on the antecedent indefinite noun phrase 'a man' that heads (1). Now it might be thought that these pronouns function semantically as do the bound variables of quantification theory. But recent work in linguistics and in the philosophy of language (see, for example, Evans 1977 and Neale 1990) suggests that this is not so. What, then, is the semantic function of these pronouns? In answer to this question, a number of theories have been proposed. In ? 2-4 of this paper, I argue that none of these theories does justice to our intuitions concerning the truth-conditions of the sentences in (1). In the last section, S5, I briefly sketch a theory that accommodates these very intuitions.

Reduced conditionals in German : Event quantification and definiteness

This paper investigates German conditionals that are reduced in the sense that their consequent clauses lack a verb and possibly more material. Focusing on readings in which conditionals quantify over events, it is shown that there are a number of semantic contrasts between reduced conditionals and their non-reduced versions. These contrasts are derived in a unified way from a hypothesis as to how the truth conditions of a reduced conditional relate to those of its non-reduced version. This hypothesis is in turn derived from assumptions as to how the Logical Form of a reduced conditional relates to the one of its non-reduced version. It is suggested that reduced and non-reduced consequent clauses can be seen to differ in a way analogous to the way definite and indefinite noun phrases differ.

Semantic relationships between verbs and their arguments

In English and Hungarian there are some verbs and constructions that do not allow definite arguments in certain positions (Definiteness Effect). This phenomenon is related to the ambiguous, weak or strong interpretation of indefinite noun phrases. In Hungarian productive noun incorporation is possible if the verb exhibits the definiteness restriction. In this paper a model-theoretic account of these phenomena will be presented. Two disjunct structures of entities (objects and events) are used for modelling nominal and verbal denotations. The direction and other properties of the functions linking them will give an explanation to the peculiarities of the linguistic data examined. It is shown that the seemingly different constraints can be traced back to the same general mathematical properties of the semantic model.

Indefinite noun phrases in legal texts: Use, function and construction of mental spaces

As a counterpart to the many studies on definite noun phrases, the present article sets out to study the functions of indefinite noun phrases in texts, represented by four types of legal texts in French (textbooks, judgments, laws and legal articles). The study brings out characteristic features of the different text types, indefinite noun phrases being used mainly in a nonreferential, predicative function in laws and textbooks, and in a referential, specific function in judgments. In legal articles, indefinite noun phrases fill a more evenly distributed set of functions. Though the study is mainly empirical, theoretical questions are also raised as to how to describe the textual function of indefinite noun phrases, and an answer is given in terms of the theory of mental spaces.

Ambiguous noun phrases in logical form

In this paper, logical form representations for pronouns, singular definite noun phrases (NPs), and singular indefinite NPs are developed. These representations allow decisions about the precise meaning of a sentence to be postponed until the required information becomes available. Three computational constraints for this logical form are proposed: compactness, modularity, and formal consistency. Initially, NPs are represented using a composite representation for all allowable meanings, conforming with the compactness constraint. This representation is provided using only syntactic and sentence level information, consistent with the modularity constraint. When an ambiguity can be resolved, the precise behavior is specified in a way compatible with the initial representation, conforming with the formal consistency constraint. The scope of this approach is demonstrated by using a wide variety of examples, and a computer implementation is described. Related approaches are also discussed.

Definiteness and the Processing of Noun Phrases in Natural Discourse

Definiteness is commonly seen as the watershed between those noun phrases (NPs) that introduce new referents and those that refer to referents already familiar. Furthermore, for definite NPs, the anaphoric use is taken to be the paradigm case, while other, so-called first-mention uses are regarded as secondary. The aim of the present paper is to challenge this view, and to argue for a more complex picture of the role of definiteness in the processing of NPs. The paper consists of two parts. The first part presents a corpus-based study of the co-referential properties of definite and indefinite NPs in natural, unrestricted texts. The data bring into light several issues with regard to co-referentiality in unrestricted discourse and the possible referential functions of indefinite and definite NPs. Particular attention is drawn to the fact that the most common function of definite NPs is not anaphoric but different types of first-mention uses. This is the point of departure for the second part of the paper, in which three different approaches to first-mention definities are discussed, and some preliminaries to an alternative model of the processing of first-mention definite NPs are presented.

Belief, Acceptance and Belief Reports

This essay is about a theory of belief and a theory of belief reports formulated within the framework of DR (Discourse Representation) theory. DR theory’s treatment of definite and indefinite noun phrases leads to a superior treatment of belief reports involving singular terms. But it also provides something of even greater potential benefit to a treatment of belief: a (highly idealized) theory of how recipients recover verbally encoded information and of what form such information must take. The use of this account of verbally encoded information causes a distinctive treatment of belief to emerge. I will focus here on an analysis within this framework of how beliefs arise from the acceptance of verbal information and how the process of belief formation interacts with the process of belief report interpretation.

La distinction valeur générique/valeur non spécifique est-elle soutenable ?

The present article supports the combinatory (nonsemantic) distinction between the generic and nonspecific value of the indefinite noun phrase. The line of argument presented is the following : nonindividual concepts and terms taken out of context have a general value, which is their only inherent value, identical with their extension. Any other values associated with them appear in a given context, i.e. when they take on syntactic functions. The conclusion drawn is that these values are relational (combinatory). • Two types of syntactic functions are distinguished : attributive function (attributive use) or constitutive propositional function, and referential function (referential use) or function of binding the argument variable in the scope of another term. Therefore, the referential use of a term is identical with its restrictive function. The generic value of a general term is the result of its referential use (as the restrictor of an argument variable) in the scope of a general term, the latter being in attributive use. The nonspecific value of the same general term is generated by its attributive use. The only condition to be met is that the argument variable it has in its scope should be bound by a singular term incorporating a modal concept that excludes

Syntactics of interpretation of negation: A developmental study

Two cues are considered as syntactic indicators of the focus of a sentential negation in 7- and 10-year-olds and adults. One is the articles; it is proposed that an indefinite noun phrase is taken within the scope of a negative and a definite noun phrase outside it. A second cue is position. Based on R. S. Jackendoff's (1969, Foundations of Language. 5, 218–241) and P. A. Hornby's (1971, Child Development, 42, 1975–1988) work, subjects may be expected to take the second noun within the focus of sentential negatives regardless of the articles. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects made picture selections for sentences of the form A/the Noun 1 isn't V-ing the/a Noun 2 and their passives. In Experiment 3, 10-year-olds describe the scenes of the sentences of the prior experiments. Noun position and article independently influenced the focus of the negation with age trends. Developmental differences in the uses of the articles are related to the acquisition of mastery of these linguistic markers.

Determiners in reading: Miscues on a few little words

Abstract. The English system of determiners seems to be very simple, since there are so few articles, the and alan. But it is more complex than it appears which serves pragmatic text functions: it is used to differentiate definite and indefinite noun phrases and to signal in a text whether particular information is given or new. Using an existing data base from reading miscue research the miscues (unexpected responses) of readers in second, fourth, and sixth grades in 8 American populations were studied to understand the control of the determiner system by the subjects and how they used determiners in the reading of cohesive narrative texts. Miscues were far less frequent than on general text words and they were limited to a small number of categories. There were almost no substitutions of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. A large proportion of the miscues were article for article substitutions. Omissions and insertions were much more common than for general miscues which reflects the use of null dete...

DEFINITENESS AND INDEFINITENESS IN NORTHERN SOTHO

An attempt is made in this contribution to identify some of the linguistic devices according to which definite and indefinite noun phrases are formally distinguished from each other in Northern Sot...