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part 1- 6. Definiteness and Indefiniteness, Materiały naukowe, The Hanbook of Pragmatics

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6. Definiteness and Indefiniteness
BARBARA ABBOTT
Theoretical Linguistics
Ç
Pragmatics
Subject
DOI:
10.1111/b.9780631225485.2005.00008.x
1 Introduction
Introduction
The prototypes of definiteness and indefiniteness in English are the definite article the and the
indefinite article a/an, and singular noun phrases (NPs)
1
determined by them. That being the case, it is
not to be predicted that the concepts, whatever their content, will extend satisfactorily to other
determiners or NP types. However, it has become standard to extend these notions. Of the two
categories definites have received rather more attention, and more than one researcher has
characterized the category of definite NPs by enumerating NP types. Westersthl (1985), who was
concerned only with determiners in the paper cited, gave a very short list: demonstrative NPs,
possessive NPs, and definite descriptions. Prince (1992) listed proper names and personal pronouns,
as well as NPs with the, a demonstrative, or a possessive NP as determiner. She noted, in addition, that
Ñcertain quantifiers (e.g. all, every) have been argued to be definiteÒ (Prince 1992: 299). This list, with
the quantifiers added, agrees with that given by Birner and Ward (1998: 114). Ariel (1988, 1990) added
null anaphoric NPs.
Casting our net widely, we arrive at the list in (1), ordered roughly from most definite or determined in
some sense to least. Speaking loosely, we can see that each NP type listed in (1) is ordinarily used to
refer to some particular and determinate entity or group of entities. Possessive NPs have been included
in the table since they are almost universally considered to be definite. However Haspelmath (1999a)
argued that possessives are not inherently definite but merely typically so. (See also Barker 2000).
Turning to indefinites, we can construct a parallel list, going in this case from intuitively least definite
to most definite. The ordering here is very rough indeed, and (as with the ordering in (1)) specific
details should not be taken to imply any serious claims - see (2):
(1)
(1) Preliminary list of definite NPs
Preliminary list of definite NPs
É
NP
NNP
NP type
type
More details
Examples
É
1
[Npe]
Control
PRO
; pro; other instances
of ellipsis
Mary tried e to fly; [on a pill packet] e
contains methanol [= Ariel 1988, ex. 7a]
É
2
Pronouns
the personal pronouns
I, you, she, them
É
3
Demonstratives
demonstrative pronouns; NPs
with demonstrative determiners
This, that, this chair over here
É
4
Definite
descriptions
NPs with the as determiner
the king of France, the table
É
5
Possessive NPs
NPs with genitive NPs as
determiner
my best friend's wedding, our house
É
6
Proper names
É
É
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É
É
(a) First name
alone
É
Julia
É
É
(b) Full proper
name
É
Julia Child
É
7
ÓžNPs
NPs with a universal quantifier as
determiner
É
É
É
(a) Each
É
Each problem
É
É
(b) Every
É
Every apple
É
É
(c) All
É
All (the) girls
É
8
[
DET
®]
The null determiner understood
generically
Pencils [are plentiful/made of wood],
beauty [is eternal]
(2)
Preliminary list of indefinite
Preliminary list of indefinite NPs
NPs
Determiner
Determiner
type
É
type
Comments
Examples
1 [
DET
®]
ÑBareÒ NPs understood existentially
Children [are crying],
snow [was piled
high]
2 Any
É
É
É (a)
Polarity sensitive any
[hardly] any books
É (b)
ÑFree choiceÒ any
Any idiot [can lose
money]
3 No
É
No thought(s), no
music
4 Most
É
Most (of the) apples,
most snow
5 A/an
É
A cook, an idea
6 Sm, some
ÑsmÒ refers to unstressed occurrences with weak or
cardinal interpretation. Some is the strong, or
partitive, version (see section 4 below).
Sm books, some (of
the) space
7 Several, a few,
many, few
These determiners also are said to have weak and
strong versions.
Several (of the)
answers, few (of the)
athletes
8 Indefinite this
Occurrences of this this can occur in existentials (see
below).
This weird guy
[came up to me]
These tables have been presented without explicit criteria or argument. In the remainder of this essay
we look in turn at a series of properties - uniqueness, familiarity, strength, specificity - each of which
is correlated with a range of grammatical phenomena and can lay some claim to expressing the
essence of definiteness.
2,3
2 Uniqueness
The classic ÑuniquenessÒ characterization of the difference between definite and indefinite NPs
emerged in Russell's (1905) attempt to find the logical form of English sentences containing denoting
phrases. A sentence with an indefinite NP as in (3) receives the logical analysis in (3a), which is
paraphrasable back into semi-ordinary English as in (3b).
(3). A student arrived.
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a. Ó x [Student(x) and Arrived(x)]
b. There exists something which both is a student and arrived.
Viewed in this way, the NP a student has the same type of analysis as a clearly quantificational NP such
as every student, whose standard logical analysis is shown in (4a).
(4). Every student arrived.
a. Ó x [Student(x) Óž Arrived(x)]
(b). Everything is such that if it is a student, then it arrived.
Notice that in neither case is the NP (a student, every student) translated as a constituent.
4
Instead
these phrases only receive an analysis in the context of a complete sentence.
Definite descriptions (NPs with the as determiner) were the centerpiece of Russell's analysis. (4)
receives the analysis in (5a).
(5). The student arrived.
(a). Ó x [Student(x) and Óžy[Student(y) Ò„y = x] and Arrived(x)]
(b). There is one and no more than one thing which is a student, and that thing arrived.
Comparing (3a) with (5a) it is clear that the clause distinguishing the two is the one underlined in (5a),
which requires there to be only one student. Thus on this view the definite article expresses the idea
that whatever descriptive content is contained in the NP applies uniquely, that is to at most one entity
in the domain of discourse.
Uniqueness does seem to capture the difference between definite and indefinite descriptions in English
when they contrast. This is brought out by examples such as the following:
(6). That wasn't A reason I left Pittsburgh, it was
THE
reason. [= Abbott 1999, ex. 2]
where the stress on each article brings forward a contrast between uniqueness vs. non-uniqueness. It
also explains why the definite article is required when the descriptive content of the NP guarantees a
unique referent.
(7). The king of France is bald.
(8). The youngest student in the class got the best grade.
(7). is Russell's most famous example.
Russell's analysis as given applies only to singular NPs. However, it is relatively straightforward to
extend Russell's concept (if not his formalization) to definite descriptions with plurals or mass heads
(e.g. the students, the sand). In his classic treatment Hawkins (1978) proposed that the crucial concept
is
INCLUSIVENESS
- reference to the totality of entities or matter to which the descriptive content of the
NP applies. (Cf. also Hawkins 1991; Hawkins's analysis is actually more complex than this, in order to
deal with the problem of incomplete descriptions. See below, section 2.3.) This aligns definite
descriptions with universally quantified NPs.
Russell's analysis of definite descriptions stood unchallenged for close to 50 years, but since that time
a number of issues have arisen which have caused many to question or to reject it. Here we will
mention three, in order of the seriousness of the challenge they present to Russell, from weakest to
strongest: presuppositionality, referentiality, and incomplete descriptions.
2.1 The problem of
2.1 The problem of presuppositionality
presuppositionality
The first challenges to Russell's theory of descriptions were raised by P. F. Strawson in his classic 1950
article ÑOn referring.Ò One of the main points of this paper was to take issue with what Russell's
analysis implied about what is asserted in the utterance of a sentence containing a definite description.
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Consider the Russellian analysis of (7):
(7). The King of France is bald.
(a). Óžx[King-of-France(x) and Óžy[King-of-France(y) Ò„y = x] and Bald(x)]
(b). There is one and only one entity who is King of France and he is bald.
Strawson argued that the first and second clauses of Russell's analysis (underlined in (7a) and (7b)), the
clauses which contain the statements of existence and uniqueness of an entity meeting the descriptive
content of the NP, have a different status from the baldness clause. He noted that were somebody to
make an announcement using (7), we would not respond ÑThat's false!,Ò but would point out the
speaker's confusion in making the utterance in the first place. Strawson argued that these two clauses
would be
PRESUPPOSED
(the term is introduced in Strawson 1952) in a current utterance of (7) and that in
the absence of a (unique) king Ñthe question of whether it is true or false simply doesn't
ariseÃ’ (Strawson 1950: 330).
It should be mentioned that some 60 years prior to Strawson's paper Frege had argued the same point
in his classic paper ÑOn sense and referenceÒ: ÑIf anything is asserted there is always an obvious
presupposition that the simple or compound proper names [roughly, definite noun phrases] used have
referenceÃ’ (Frege 1892: 69). Furthermore Frege included a specific argument: if the assertion were as
given in (7b) then the negation of (7) should be:
(7)c. Either the King of France is not bald, or the phrase Ñthe King of FranceÒ has no reference.
However it seems obvious that the negation of (7) would not be (7c) but rather (7d):
(7)d. The King of France is not bald.
which presupposes the existence of a King of France just as much as (7) does (cf. Frege 1892: 68f.).
Frege's work, now considered fundamental, underwent a period of neglect during the middle part of
the twentieth century.
Since the publication of Strawson's paper there has been fairly unanimous support for the intuitions he
expressed, but less agreement on how best to give an account of these facts. One main parameter of
disagreement has been whether presuppositions are best regarded as a semantic phenomenon
affecting the truth conditions of utterances, as Strawson viewed them, or are instead better seen as
pragmatic conditions on the appropriateness of an utterance. See Stalnaker (1974) and Bor and Lycan
(1976) for discussion, and see Atlas (this volume).
A complicating factor is variation in strength of presuppositions, depending apparently on whether the
triggering phrase is functioning as
TOPIC
of the sentence (see Gundel and Fretheim, this volume). (7e)
seems not to presuppose the existence of a king, or not as strongly as (7), and seems to be simply
false rather than lacking a truth value.
(7)e. Bill had lunch with the King of France last week.
See Strawson (1964b) and McCawley (1979). See also Atlas (to appear), von Fintel (to appear), and the
works cited there for discussion.
2.2 The problem of referentiality
The second important critique of Russell's theory was launched by Keith Donnellan in his 1966 classic
ÑReference and definite descriptions.Ò Donnellan argued that definite descriptions have two uses, one
of which, called by him the
ATTRIBUTIVE
use, corresponds to Russell's analysis but the other of which,
termed
REFERENTIAL
, does not.
Donnellan's most famous example is given in (9):
(9). Smith's murderer is insane.
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As an example of the attributive use of the description in (9), consider a situation in which the police
detective first views the crime scene where Smith, the sweetest and most lovable person imaginable,
has been brutally murdered. The utterance in that case conveys: ÑWhoever murdered Smith is/must be
insane,Ã’ and the particular description used, Smith's murderer, is essential to the propositional content
of the utterance, just as Russell's analysis suggests. However, we can imagine quite a different
scenario, say at the trial of Jones, who everyone is convinced is the one who murdered Smith. Suppose
that Jones is behaving very strangely while on trial - muttering constantly under his breath and
throwing spitballs at the judge. A spectator might utter (9), perhaps with a nod in Jones's direction, in
order to make a claim that the individual Jones is insane. This would be an example of Donnellan's
referential use. While on the attributive use one says something about whoever or whatever fits the
description used, on the referential use the description used is just a means to get the addressee to
realize which entity is being spoken about, and in principle any other description or term which would
have that result would do as well. Thus in the courtroom scenario the speaker might have said, instead
of (9), That guy is insane or He [pointing] is insane.
Donnellan hedged a good bit on whether the distinction he was pointing out was semantic or
pragmatic. One of his more controversial claims was that one could use a definite description
referentially to make a true statement about somebody or something who did not fit the description -
for instance in the example above, were Jones innocent of Smith's murder but insane. Kripke (1977)
used this controversial claim in a rebuttal many have found persuasive. Kripke distinguished semantic
reference from speaker's reference and argued that Donnellan's referential use was simply the latter
and thus a purely pragmatic affair. On the other hand, many of Donnellan's defenders who have
believed in the semantic relevance of his distinction have discarded this controversial aspect (see
Kaplan 1978, Wettstein 1981, Wilson 1991, Reimer 1998b; cf. also Dekker 1998). Burge (1974)
assimilated referentially used definite descriptions (as well as pronouns and, interestingly, tenses) to
the category of demonstrative phrases. According to Burge what they all have in common is that they
are used to Ñpick out an object without uniquely specifying itÒ (206f.). Burge proposed an analysis of
demonstrative phrases according to which reference is determined, in part, by an act of referring on
the part of the speaker, which accompanies the utterance of the demonstrative phrase. However the
descriptive content of the NP must also apply to the referent on his account. (See Neale 1990 and Bach,
to appear a, for extensive discussion of Donnellan's referential-attributive distinction, and see Carlson,
this volume, on reference in general.)
2.3 The problem of
2.3 The problem of incomplete descriptions
incomplete descriptions
The kind of examples which appeared in Russell's 1905 paper, like (7) repeated here and (10),
(7). The king of France is bald.
(10). The author of Waverley is Scott.
are ones where the content of the description is such as to ensure a unique referent. Thus in a typical
use of such sentences to make a true assertion the Russellian truth conditions would be satisfied: if
(10), for example, is true then there is one and only one person who wrote Waverley and that person is
Scott.
Perhaps the most intractable problem with Russell's analysis has been the existence of what are known
as
INCOMPLETE
(or sometimes
IMPROPER
) descriptions.
5
These are examples in which the descriptive
content of a definite NP does not apply uniquely to the intended referent, or to anything else. This
problem was pointed out by Strawson in his 1950 critique, but only as a passing comment and not a
major objection. Thus Strawson noted:
Consider the sentence, ÑThe table is covered with books.Ò It is quite certain that in any
normal use of this sentence, the expression Ñthe tableÒ would be used to make a unique
reference, i.e. to refer to some one table. It is a quite strict use of the definite article. È
Russell says that a phrase of the form Ñthe so-and-so,Ò used strictly, Ñwill only have an
application in the event of there being one so-and-so and no more.Ã’ Now it is obviously
quite false that the phrase Ñthe tableÒ in the sentence Ñthe table is covered with books,Ò
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