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2100157 results in Journals

Page 394 of 105008

  • Definiteness and the English Existential

  • Gregory Ward, Betty Birner
  • Journal:
    Language / Volume 71 / Issue 4 / December 1995
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    19 February 2026, pp. 722-742

  • Numerous attempts have been made to place restrictions on the occurrence of formally definite NPs in English existential there-sentences. The wide range of definite NPs found in this construction, however, precludes any (noncircular) characterization of such a definiteness effect based on linguistic form alone. Nonetheless, previous functional analyses of definites in there-sentences have also failed to account for all of the problematic data in a unified way. We present an account of existential there-sentences in which the postverbal NP is required to represent a hearer-new entity; based on a large corpus of naturally occurring data, we identify five types of formally definite yet hearer-new NPs that may felicitously occur in there-sentences. The alleged restriction against definite NPs in there-sentences is shown to be the result of a mismatch between the cognitive status to which definiteness is sensitive and that to which the postverbal position in there-sentences is sensitive.

  • Explaining Article-Possessor Complementarity: Economic Motivation in Noun Phrase Syntax

  • Martin Haspelmath
  • Journal:
    Language / Volume 75 / Issue 2 / June 1999
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    19 February 2026, pp. 227-243

  • In many languages the definite article cannot occur when a possessive phrase is present in the NP (e.g. English the my book, John's the book). I argue that these patterns can be understood in terms of economic motivation because possessed NPs are very likely to be definite. A structural explanation in terms of a unique determiner position is insufficient to account for the full range of attested crosslinguistic patterns, and the universal generalizations that do seem to be valid can be derived from the economy-based explanation. Finally I show how the performance motivation of economy creates the competence pattern in diachronic change.

  • LAN volume 83 issue 3 Cover and Back matter

  • Journal:
    Language / Volume 83 / Issue 3 / September 2007
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    19 February 2026, pp. b1-b19
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Page 394 of 105008