Professional Documents
Culture Documents
It argues
that definiteness should be viewed as a cover-term comprising three
basic oppositions within the areas of familiarity (locatability),
quantity (inclusiveness) and generality (extensivity). Further, the
oppositions are not discrete but scalar, and lend themselves to
characterization in terms of fuzzy-set theory. Dr Chesterman
examines these themes, firstly by drawing on several traditions of
research on the rich system of articles in English, and then by looking
at how the concept of definiteness is realized in Finnish, a language
which has no articles and typically leaves definiteness to be inferred by
a variety of means.
On definiteness provides a thorough and sensitive discussion of an
intricate semantic problem. It highlights two important theoretical
points: the fuzziness of the linguistic concept of definiteness, and the
differences between languages in the ways in which they draw the lines
between syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LINGUISTICS
General Editors: B. COMRIE, C. J. FILLMORE, R. LASS, D. LIGHTFOOT, J. LYONS,
P. R MATTHEWS, R. POSNER, S. ROMAINE, N. V. SMITH, N. VINCENT
On definiteness
In this series
Supplementary volumes
BRIAN D. JOSEPH: The synchrony and diachrony of the Balkan infinitive
ANNETTE SCHMIDT: Young people's Dyirbal: an example of language death from Australia
JOHN HARRIS: Phonological variation and change: studies in Hiberno-English
TERENCE MCKAY: Infinitival complements in German
STELLA MARIS BORTONI-RICARDO: The urbanization of rural dialect speakers: a socio-
linguistic study in Brazil
RUDOLF p. BOTHA: Form and meaning in word formation: a study of Afrikaans
reduplication
AYHAN AKSU-KOC: The acquisition of aspect and modality: the case of past reference in
Turkish
MICHEAL o SIADHAIL: Modern Irish: grammatical structure and dialectal variation
ANNICK DE HOUWER: The acquisition of two languages from birth: a case study
Earlier titles not listed are also available.
* Issued in hard covers and as a paperback
ON DEFINITENESS
A STUDY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO ENGLISH AND FINNISH
ANDREW CHESTERMAN
Lecturer in English, Department of English, University of Helsinki
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521391948
© Cambridge University Press 1991
1 Introduction page 1
1.1 The realization of definiteness 1
1.2 The theoretical problems 2
1.3 The English problem 4
1.4 General outline 8
2 English articles: the research traditions 10
2.1 Background 10
2.2 The location theory 17
2.3 Extensivity 25
2.4 The bare plural 29
2.5 Generics 32
2.6 Conclusions 39
3 English article usage 41
3.1 Noun classes 41
3.2 How many articles? 44
3.3 Usage types 52
ix
Contents
This book started life as a Ph.D. thesis for the University of Reading. I am
greatly indebted to the Finnish Academy for financial support, par-
ticularly for enabling me to spend a year full-time at the University of
Reading.
For academic advice and encouragement my thanks go to a number of
people: to Matti Rissanen and Ossi Ihalainen for several inspiring
discussions on little boys breaking windows and the presence of beer in the
fridge; to Matti Kilpio for lending me his expertise on Old English; to
Terho Itkonen for kindly reading and commenting on drafts of the
Finnish sections; to Pertti Hietaranta for insightful comments on Finnish
se; and to Lauri Carlson for pointing me in the right direction on fuzzy-
set theory. I have also benefited from the critical comments of three
anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press. Above all I must
thank Colin Biggs for his patience, thoroughness and encouragement at
Reading. Needless to say, my own obstinacy carries the responsibility for
this final version.
Several groups of Helsinki University English students have also
contributed, either knowingly or unknowingly, to my work, as have some
of my colleagues in the Helsinki English Department, by answering my
queries on borderline cases and invariably coming up with awkward
examples. Kiitos!
And finally, thank you to Marja and Sanja for helping to keep the
balance: without my Finnish-English family the whole project would
have been impossible.
The poem by Roy Hinks on page 205 is cited by kind permission of the
author.
1 Introduction
1
2 Introduction
It is sometimes said that such relatively insignificant words [i.e. as the articles] are
grammatical tools. But the function of tools is to achieve some specific end. That
is precisely what, in many cases, the article does not do, or at all events does only
in a very slight and uncertain degree. Often it is mere useless ballast, a habit or
mannerism accepted by an entire speaking community. The accumulation of old
rubbish is so easy. (Gardiner 1932: 47. Cited in Hewson 1972: 78-9)
The word 'article' itself derives from the Greek arthron, which in Greek
covered relative pronouns and originally also personal pronouns. Latin,
however, had no articles, and because the early seventeenth-century
grammarians of English based their descriptions on Latin the English
articles presented a problem (see e.g. Michael 1970; Vorlat 1975). Most of
The English problem 5
them did not dare to recognize the articles as a separate part of speech,
and gave them a variety of descriptive labels such as 'nominal note',
'particle', 'sign of the substantive', 'sign corresponding to the Latin
cases', and later 'adjective'. For instance, Michael (1970: 351) quotes
from J. Clarke's Rational Spelling Book of 1772: 'As there is but one real
Case in our Tongue, viz. the Genitive... we are obliged to have Recourse
to Articles to decline our nouns.' It was understood that a was a weakened
form of the numeral one, and that the derived from the demonstrative that,
but there is very little analysis of the different functions of these forms.
The definite article the was said to 'individuate', and often implied
previous reference, while a was used with first mentions.
It is really not until Lowth (1762) that articles are taken as a separate
word-class in their own right. As such, Lowth was also interested in the
characteristics of this word-class as a whole, as well as the differences
between the articles. He wrote that the articles - i.e. the and a - are used
before nouns 'to shew how far their signification extends'. And: 'A
substantive without any article to limit it is taken in its widest sense'
(Lowth 1762: 15ff.: quoted in Michael 1970: 361). We shall have reason
to return to this insight later, and also to the connection between the
articles in English and case in other languages.
This kind of historical perspective illustrates how the early grammarians
looked at the English articles through Greek and Latin spectacles. At the
beginning they were not seen as a self-evident well-defined category native
to English itself.
DEFINITE INDEFINITE
Count Non-count Count Non-count
Singular the tiger the furniture a tiger (some) furniture
Plural the tigers (some) tigers
In addition, say the authors, the, a and 'the zero article' can be used for
generic reference, in contexts which vary to some extent for each of these
articles.
6 Introduction
(a) English has two articles proper, the and a; plus (sometimes)
unstressed some.
(b) The set of articles also includes the member 'no article', or 'zero
determination'. This is at least sometimes in free variation with
some in non-generic contexts.
(e) Proper names are a separate category, and do not take articles at
all in the singular.
There are problems with all these assumptions, which will be discussed
at length in subsequent sections. The main issues can be outlined as
follows.
object and hence count, but in another culture some dog might denote
desirable food and thus become a mass noun. And imagine the giant in
' Jack and the Beanstalk' calling out' I smell boy!' Apart from the obvious
impossibility (for historical reasons, a deriving from one) of a + plural, the
exceptional cases would be no longer those with an unusual article, but
those nouns which consistently reject a given article. This rejection would
thus be the result of a clash between something in the meaning of the noun
in question and something in the meaning of the article. (This topic is
discussed further in 3.1.)
It seems, then, that the problem remains of producing a coherent
description of article usage in English, one that does not need to
incorporate such a host of exceptions. My own analysis (in chapter 4) will
seek to combine insights from several research traditions into a more
comprehensive theory of the articles than any of the traditions can provide
on its own.
2.1 Background
continuous. The shape is due exclusively to the outer mould; the part marked off
does not become a unit, a member of a class. (1939: 26)
(7) I wonder if you have come across a fellow called James Birch. We
were at Eton together.
(8) His father is an MP.
Christophersen says of (7) that 'it is about one definite person which the
speaker knows and which he supposes the hearer too to know'. But
whether or not the speaker knows the referent is irrelevant: it is the
hearer's assumed knowledge that matters. It may even be that the hearer
does not in fact know James Birch - but this is Christophersen's point: a
fellow may or may not be 'familiar'.
Of (8) Christophersen observes that his father presupposes definiteness
and familiarity, and 'the talk can therefore only be of one definite M.P.'.
Background 15
which the zero article is merely the mass and plural equivalent of a. A
major source here for Christophersen is the work of Guillaume; I shall
return to the actualization theory, and Guillaume's version of it in
particular, in a later section (2.3).
The point is that the form occurring with singular proper nouns cannot
occur in conjunction with a restrictive relative but must be replaced by the.
The zero article, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable in such contexts
(1970: 11). In order to distinguish conveniently between these two types
of' no-article' NP I shall henceforth refer to the traditional indefinite form
of mass and plural nouns as the zero form; and the other type, exemplified
by singular proper nouns, I shall call the null form.
In support of the view that the zero and null forms are distinct
Yotsukura also cites Palmer (1939: 54), who distinguished between 'the
alogistic indefinite article' (i.e. zero) and 'cases in which no article
(alogistic, or other) is used at all'. More recently, Sloat (1969: 26) has
argued that proper nouns are no more than a special subclass of common
nouns, characterized by the fact that 'they require a zero allomorph of
The location theory 17
view of the speaker at a given time. It can easily be shifted as the discourse
proceeds.) On the other hand, in (19) the referent is not locatable in any
shared set:
(19) Bill found a ten-pound note yesterday.
Whether or not an indefinite referent is locatable in a shared set is thus a
matter of the pragmatics of the sentence: non-locatability is not a defining
feature of a or some. This position is strikingly similar to Christophersen's:
as we saw, familiarity is neutral with respect to a. Indefinites, then, are the
unmarked form, while definite descriptions follow more restricted
pragmatic conditions.
Hawkins argues that his formulation of the meaning of the articles can
also account for what he presents as counter-examples to Christophersen's
theory. However, I do not think he is entirely fair to Christophersen here.
The counter-examples are all 'unfamiliar' (first-mention) uses of the
definite article. Hawkins groups them as follows:
Establishing relative clauses
(20) What's wrong with Bill?-Oh, the woman he went out with last night
was nasty to him.
Associative clauses (actually phrases)
(21) I remember the beginning of the war very well.
NP-complements
(22) Bill is amazed by the fact that there is so much life on earth.
Nominal modifiers
(23) I don't like the colour aubergine.
'Unexplanatory' modifiers
(24) My wife and I share the same secrets.
Hawkins' own explanations of these are interesting. With the exception
of (24), all the examples are of postmodified nouns. These are only
counter-examples to Christophersen, therefore, if familiarity is taken in
the strict sense of previously established knowledge. But on this level they
are equally counter-examples to Hawkins' own theory, for ' shared sets' in
the strict sense are also established by previously acquired, already
existing knowledge. So what Hawkins has to do is to relax the definition
of a shared set in order to allow it to include sets which are actually
established on the basis of information that comes after the mention of the
noun in question, albeit within the total definite NP.
Now the nature of this information, which thus justifies the definite
article, appears to vary greatly both in degree and in kind. In (21)—(23) the
postmodifier gives enough information for the hearer to identify
20 The research traditions
(28) I always read the sports page of the Financial Times from beginning
to end. ( - But I didn't know it had a sports page.)
(29) People are often surprised by the fact that Oliver Cromwell was half-
Eskimo on his mother's side. ( - I s that really a fact?)
one of the set on Fred's hand, but I cannot identify which finger is being
referred to. Locatability is only one condition of identifiability. The other,
in Hawkins' analysis, is inclusiveness, to which I now turn.
the boxes and the water are, he suggests, examples of fuzzy sets - an idea
I shall return to later. For Lewis (1973, 1979), the references in (38) and
(39) would be to all the salient referents, not 'all' the referents per se.
A second criticism of the inclusiveness idea is that it makes the definite
article appear very different from demonstratives (see e.g. Cruse 1980; C.
Lyons 1980). This is because stressed demonstratives are exclusive, not
inclusive, and unstressed demonstratives are neutral in this respect.
Stressed demonstratives are thus like the indefinite article rather than like
the, which appears an odd conclusion. However, Hawkins does show
(1978: 149ff.) that there are in fact a large number of contexts where
demonstratives cannot replace the, which suggests that they are actually
rather more different than is perhaps assumed.
2.2.3 The first part of Hawkins' speech acts for the use of both definite
and indefinite articles states that in each case the speaker introduces a
referent or referents to the hearer. Hawkins is in fact concerned exclusively
with reference. Such an approach must be inadequate for a theory of the
articles as a whole, for it is well known that both the and a (and zero) can
also be used non-referentially. The basic insights of the location theory
have been applied to non-referential NPs by Declerck (1986). Declerck
points out first that the inclusive/exclusive distinction holds equally well
for predicate NPs such as the following:
In (41), but not in (40), it is implied that there are also other victims of
John's generosity.
Declerck then states the difference between referential and non-
referential definiteness as follows. For referential NPs the semantic
difference between definite and indefinite is that definite NPs are both
'uniquely identifiable' and inclusive (or at least conversationally
implicated to be inclusive), whereas indefinite NPs are neither. For non-
referential NPs, such as predicate NPs, the semantic difference has to do
with whether or not the NP represents a property which is 'uniquely
determining', i.e. ascribed uniquely to the NP in question. Thus the
difference between John and Bill are good players and John and Bill are the
good players is that in the latter sentence the property NP the good players
denotes the complete set of good players in the relevant context, which is
not the case for the indefinite NP good players. A 'uniquely determining
property' is of course the non-referential equivalent of inclusive reference.
Extensivity 25
2.3 Extensivity
as the null form. A major source of this kind of analysis is the work of
Guillaume (1919, 1945), whose general approach to the problem of the
articles is very different from those mentioned so far. (See also Curat
1985.) Although it has clearly influenced Christophersen, Guillaume's
theory seems to be relatively unfamiliar: Hawkins, for instance, has no
mention of it.
Guillaume's theory of language is a ' psychometrical' one. It starts with
what are posited to be psychological, cognitive mechanisms which govern
man's dialogue with the universe, both as he is confronted by it and as he
confronts it himself. (For a recent account, see Hewson 1972.) Guillaume's
work on the articles (for French) formed a major part of his theory, and
was elegantly, if apologetically, summarized by Bodelsen (in the latter's
review of Jespersen) in the following simile (Bodelsen 1949: 285-6):
Language is like a room. The ceiling represents the world of abstract conceptions,
the floor that of concrete reality. Under the ceiling hang a number of balloons;
they are the words as they exist in language (as opposed to speech), and a
dictionary is in fact a plan of the ceiling with its crowd of balloons. In order to
make those balloons which represent substantives available in speech they must be
brought down to thefloor.This is done by attaching to each of them a weight, and
this weight is an article. Those which represent proper names need no weight,
because they are always on the floor.
The dimension along which zero differs from a/the is one of extensivity,
in Guillaume's terminology. This is not to be confused with extension.
Hewson illustrates the difference as follows (1972: 49):
Extension concerns range of quantity and refers to amount included in the
signiflcate (external view); extensivity is a range of quality and refers to the extent
of dematerialization of the signiflcate (internal view). To include wolf in the notion
dog is to enlarge its extension, but not necessarily its extensivity. To evolve from
dog a more abstract notion of doggishness is to enlarge the extensivity but not
necessarily the extension.
(44) You and I have been digging up gold here for years
the absence of the before gold is because, although ' the gold would be
familiar enough to both speakers', the word is not being used to refer to
concrete, quantitative presence. Compare Where is the gold?
A more recent version of this distinction is that of Chafe (1970: 186ff.),
who speaks of the contrast between 'the general substance water' or 'the
entire class of elephants', and 'some particular water or some particular
elephant or elephants'. In the former case we have zero, in the latter some,
a or the. He also phrases the opposition as 'the totality of a substance or
class vs an instance of the substance or a member of the class'.
Christophersen himself rejects Guillaume's theory (which he calls the
substantiation theory, a version of the actualization theory) as such
because, he says, it was devised for French and does not apply so well to
English. This is because, although abstract ideas (with zero) lack
'substance', nevertheless continuous objects with zero (e.g. cheese) - and
also proper names - have substance. In French, such continuous objects
(though not proper names) would take an article. To be fair, Guillaume's
subject is indeed the solution of the article problem in French; yet his
basic insight is applicable to English, as Hewson shows. Christophersen's
characterization of the zero article clearly derives from Guillaume: 'a
28 The research traditions
It is frequently held that the zero article is ' merely' the plural and
mass equivalent of the indefinite article a, alternating in many contexts
with unstressed some. There is, however, a considerable body of evidence
against such a view, discussed most notably by Carlson. Carlson (1977)
argues in some detail, first, that zero + plural (what he calls the bare
plural) is not the plural of a.
Carlson's strategy is to list a number of structures in which a and the
zero plural are shown to have different semantic properties, over and
above the difference of number. Most of the differences he shows are
30 The research traditions
Evidence of this kind, then, leads Carlson to claim that zero + plural is
not the plural of a, but something qualitatively different. His second
argument is that the so-called 'indefinite plural' zero and the generic
plural zero are one and the same thing. This implies that it is not the case
that zero + plural NPs are always ambiguous between generic and non-
generic, or between universal and existential, readings. (I return to
generics below, in 2.5.) Interesting data in favour of a unitary, non-
ambiguous description of the zero plural are examples where each of the
so-called different readings of zero may stand in anaphoric relationship
with each other, such as (54) and (55).
(54) Mick traps lemmings [non-generic, according to Carlson at least] even
though he knows full well that they [generic] are protected by law.
(55) Lemmings [generic] are protected by law, but Mick goes ahead and
traps them [non-generic] anyway.
Finally, Carlson suggests that what all types of zero + plural NPs have
in common is that they are proper names of kinds of things. He points out
that the zero plural occurs in several structures where the noun kind can
also be used:
(56) Abner repairs cars/ this kind of car for a living.
(57) Cats were /This kind of animal was seen everywhere.
Structures with kind have the same scope readings as the zero plural:
(58) Everyone saw this kind of animal.
In (58), that is, everyone saw different individual animals: compare (48)
above. And similarly for anaphoric phenomena:
(59) Harriet caught this kind of animal yesterday, and Max caught it (or:
them) earlier today.
Compare (60):
(60) Harriet caught cats yesterday, and Max caught them earlier today.
In neither (59) nor (60) are the same individuals being caught by both
Harriet and Max.
Carlson also cites other evidence all pointing in the same direction: the
bare plural 'acts as the proper name of a kind'. It is the context, and the
context only, that selects an appropriate reading for the bare plural:
generic or existential. For instance, adjectives denoting more or less
temporary states, such as drunk, awake, force an existential reading in
sentences such as (61) and (62).
32 The research traditions
(65) Everyone collected honey, (not ambiguous, not the same particles of
honey)
(66) Queenie is bringing whisky, and Phil is bringing it too. (only the
reading ' general activity of whisky-bringing')
(67) Abdul drinks gin, even though he knows full well that it is banned in
his country, (non-generic - generic)
(68) Gin is banned in his country, but Abdul goes ahead and drinks it
anyway, (generic - non-generic)
(69) Abner digs coal for a living, (cf. (56))
(70) Coal was seen everywhere, (cf. (57))
I think any comprehensive description of the articles and also
genericness will have to take account of the evidence presented in
Carlson's work. It is clearly no longer adequate to treat the zero article as
a plural/mass equivalent of a: neither is it merely an alternative variant
of some.
2.5 Generics
description of the articles. The first is the slipperiness of the term 'generic'
itself, and the consequent difficulty of understanding the notion as a
simple binary opposition of ± generic. The second is the way each so-
called generic article seems to impart to the generic reading of the NP a
particular nuance of its own.
In the first place there is disagreement about what constitutes a generic
NP or a possible generic structure a priori. Doubts have been raised about
the possible generic status of the + plural NPs (Burton-Roberts 1976;
Quirk et al. 1985), the zero article (Burton-Roberts 1981) and a (Jespersen
1949). There have also been queries about the possibility of a generic
reading for certain given structures: thus C. S. Smith (1964: 52) claims
that 'the in object position is not taken as generic if the subject
nounphrase is a proper name'. Other studies have refuted such doubts and
queries (see e.g. N. V. Smith 1975; Burton-Roberts 1981).
There have also been surprisingly many differences of opinion on
individual readings of genericness, and appeals to some extremely
borderline data. Consider the following examples cited in N. V. Smith
(1975):
(71) The idea is more perfect than the object, (generic for Vendler (1968:
20), 'dubious' for Smith)
(72) A beaver built dams in prehistoric times, (generic for Smith,
unacceptable on a generic reading for Perlmutter (1970))
(73) Time elapses more quickly in old age than in childhood, (non-generic
for Smith, generic for me)
(74) Ideas are alien to the undergraduate, (non-generic for Smith, generic
for me)
(75) A toad, the scholar is being fascinated by these days, (grammatical
and generic for Smith, starred for me)
(76) The true lover kisses whenever the opportunity presents itself, (starred
by Smith, grammatical and generic for me)
Such acceptability disagreements seem to indicate not only that
genericness is understood in different ways, but also that in this area as a
whole native speakers tend to find it difficult to agree on binary
judgements of genericness or grammaticality. One might also conclude that
maybe genericness is not amenable to a binary analysis (i.e. ± generic) in
the first place.
For those who do take genericness to be a binary feature, a basic line
of argument has been whether the feature is syntactic or semantic. Studies
by Postal (1970a) and Robbins (1968) take generic to be a syntactic feature,
occurring in syntactic rules. However, the majority view has more recently
34 The research traditions
been that the feature is part of semantics: see e.g. C. S. Smith (1964),
Jackendoff (1972), Ihalainen (1974). An additional argument has been
that this semantic feature ' generic' is not present in deep structure but is
derived from the surface structure: i.e. that the most fruitful approach is
that of interpretive semantics (Jackendoff 1972; Ihalainen 1974; N. V.
Smith 1975; Nunberg and Pan 1975).
However, there are a number of well-known factors which seem to
militate against taking 'generic' as a unified phenomenon at all, in
addition to the acceptability differences mentioned above. First, the so-
called generic articles the, a and zero have different distributions: they are
not in free variation. These differences are partly syntactic, as shown in the
examples with class predicates in (77).
(77) a. The dodo is extinct.
(77) b. Dodos are extinct.
(77) c. *A dodo is extinct.
There are also generic sentences without class predicates where all these
three forms are grammatical, but cannot be given the same combination
of readings:
(78) a. The dodo likes peanuts, (generic or non-generic)
(78) b. Dodos like peanuts, (generic only)
(78) c. A dodo likes peanuts, (generic or non-generic)
On the basis of evidence such as this some have posited two different
types of generic sentence (e.g. N. V. Smith 1975), one with a class
predicate and one without. It also seems that the precise nature of the
generic interpretation may be affected by the intrinsic meaning of the
article concerned. I now turn in more detail to the way in which each of
the so-called generic articles has been analysed.
2.5.2 The zero article. It is well known that most generic sentences
cannot be properly formulated in terms of the universal quantifier and
that a weaker formulation is necessary. Thus, for the zero article it has
been suggested that the relevant quantifier is in general or generally (Biggs
1978). This approach shifts attention from the NP itself to the verb or the
whole sentence, and is thus comparable to attempts to construe generic
sentences in terms of a 'generic verb' such as tend (see Lawler 1972). So
(79) can be paraphrased as (80):
(79) In general, dodos like peanuts.
(80) Dodos tend to like peanuts.
Generics 35
(85) The empress wants a new elephant, but she can't find one that pleases
her.
Burton-Roberts (1976) proposes a common deep structure for generic a
and the copula a (as in John is a scientist). Generic a would thus be quite
different from generic zero, and from generic the.
Generic the. The problematic form here is generic the-\- plural NP.
The disagreement about the generic status of this form clearly stems from
the way 'generic' is defined. Where the definite article is concerned this is
usually in terms of a genus of some sort, a species. Thus the horse can refer
to the species 'horse'. Those who deny the possibility of a generic
the + plural are therefore taking the view that, by definition, there can be
no more than one 'horse' genus. However, there is a sense in which this
is not the case - and it is in precisely this sense that generic the + plural is
used. The sense is, of course, 'types, subspecies of a genus'. The reference
is to a sub-genus, at a lower level of generality than the superordinate
genus; but it is none the less a genus of a kind, since it is at a higher, more
general level than the individual horse. So if the + singular can refer to a
single species, the-\- plural can, as we would expect, refer to more-than-one
species: in this case, however, the species are hyponyms of the higher-
order species.
Consider first examples such as the following:
(86) Among the lizards, iguanas are the most popular as a local food.
The most obvious reading here is 'family of lizard-types', 'species (pi.) of
lizard'. Given the inclusiveness of the we would also expect the reference
to be to all the types of lizards, and it is thus semantically equivalent to
(generic) the lizard, since a (higher) genus includes all its subspecies.
Compare (87), from Burton-Roberts (1981):
(87) Bjorn wants to gather statistics on at least three whales that are
threatened with extinction. Ideally, the whales should all be most
numerous in the same part of the world.
Here the only possible reading for generic the whales is 'kinds of whale',
with the indicating all the members of a set of subspecies. In this case the
set is not equivalent in scope to generic the whale, however, because the
NP the whales is implicitly modified restrictively by which Bjorn wants to
gather statistics on. This interpretation of generic the + plural also carries
over to examples where a normally mass noun is converted to a plural
count. Consider the following:
Generics 37
Notice now that also generic a can give the reading ' subspecies, type': this
is in fact a possible reading for a dodo is extinct; see also the 'selective'
reading in (85) above, implying 'a certain ideal type', and examples like
(91):
(91) Lars wants to study a deer that abounds in southern Africa but is
rare in the north. (Burton-Roberts 1981)
Being exclusive in Hawkins' sense, a indicates the existence also of other
types of dodo/deer. And the same 'type' or 'subset' reading may also
hold for the + singular NP:
(92) The horse known as Przewalski's horse comes from Mongolia.
If we carry this line of enquiry further it appears that even unstressed
some can be used in this way, in some rather restricted contexts. This of
course goes right against the view that unstressed some cannot be generic,
but, again, it all depends what you mean by 'generic'. Consider these
examples:
(93) Celia is campaigning about some seals. They are the kinds that are
found in Newfoundland and Alaska, and they are dying out at an
alarming rate.
(94) Continued destruction of the rainforest will lead to the extermination
of some rare insects.
Sentence (94) illustrates how certain adjectives - those which predicate a
property of a group or class - also force a ' type' reading.
Allowing a generic the + plural therefore seems to mean also allowing a
generic some + plural, in some contexts at least, since both are acceptable
if a subspecies reading is possible. The established solution, of course, is
to reject all such readings, as not being generic in the 'proper' sense of the
word. Yet the only difference between the 'whole genus' and the 'type' or
'subspecies' readings is in fact a hierarchical one. The higher term is
38 The research traditions
accepted as generic and the lower terms (usually) rejected, although both
are referring at a higher level of abstraction than the particular. In the
absence of an explicit and agreed definition of'generic', the 'subspecies'
readings remain borderline cases - and hence critical for any definition.
2.5.3 The dichotomy between ' whole genus' and ' subspecies' readings
is not the only indication that genericness is not a simple unitary
phenomenon. There is also evidence suggesting that, in some cases at least,
it may be understood more as a cline. To illustrate this I return to the
interpretation of the generic zero article, already touched on above. We
have data such as the following:
(95) Bachelors are not married.
(96) Horses are mammals.
(97) Dodos eat peanuts.
(98) Italians make fine furniture.
(99) Finns always do well in ski-jumping competitions.
These are all traditionally taken as generic sentences with generic subjects.
In each case something appears to be predicated of a whole genus. Yet the
precise quantitative interpretation of the subject NPs varies along a cline
from 'all' to 'a few'. Example (95) is analytic, and applies without
exception to all bachelors. Example (96) is an essential proposition
applying to all horses. The truth values of (95) and (96) would therefore
be altered, logically, by the occurrence of a single counter-example. The
truth value of (97) would not be so altered, since (97) need only apply to
dodos in general, most dodos. Sentence (98) is not predicated of all
Italians; indeed it is actually predicated of a rather small subset of Italians,
viz. the furniture-makers. Sentence (99) has an even more limited
reference: not to Finns in general but to Finnish ski-jumpers, and only to
the cream of these, perhaps only two or three individuals. The appropriate
quantifier in each case is thus determined pragmatically (see also Carlson
1977; Kleiber 1985).
2.6 Conclusions
The idea that the meaning of the articles can be analysed as a single
polar opposition has also been criticized from another point of view. Even
if it is granted that 'definite' is the polar opposite of 'indefinite', it is not
equally clear-cut that the is the polar opposite of a, or even of a + zero. 1
Thorne (1972) argues that the difference between the and a is not actually
+ definite at all, since the two are not likes: the is a deictic expression
meaning 'which is there', whereas a is historically derived from a numeral.
(See also J. Lyons 1975.) Moreover, it is a fact that if zero or some (or
both) are included there are more indefinite articles than definite ones. It
has often been observed that indefiniteness is a more complex pheno-
menon than its apparent opposite: thus J. Lyons (1977: 188) would rather
use 'non-definite', reserving 'indefinite' for a subset of 'non-definite'
NPs.
This leads to a further unresolved issue: the articles as a syntactic
category. There is still no agreement on how this category should be
delimited: some studies assume two articles, the and a; others include
zero; others include unstressed some; and still others distinguish between
zero and null forms. The question of the number of articles has a direct
bearing on the matter raised above: if there is an article system
comprising, say, as many as five members, a single semantic opposition
will not suffice to separate them all. Alongside the traditional opposition
of ± definite, then, there seems good reason also to consider other possible
oppositions, such as 'surface article' vs 'no surface article'.
The preceding review has also touched occasionally on another
significant point: the relation between logic, as represented, for example,
by the universal quantifier, and pragmatics, as represented by normal
article usage. With respect to the notion of inclusiveness, and again in the
quantificational interpretation of certain generic NPs, it was apparent that
an analysis in purely logical terms would leave much article usage
unaccounted for.
1
For experimental evidence in support of this very point, see Garton (1983), who argues
that a child's use of the articles a and the must be seen as part of a total system of
determination, not as a simple binary contrast.
3 English article usage
41
42 English article usage
(1) The Belgian rider showed a grit and a determination that left his rivals
standing.
(2) He came to find in her a love/an envy/a beauty/a daring he had never
suspected.
(3) This is a very special honey.
Noun classes 43
All these represent a 'type' reading-a 'type' of grit, envy, honey, etc.
Then there are 'exceptions' showing singular count nouns [C] with 'no
article'. (The Advanced learner's dictionary does not bother to mark
common concrete nouns with a [C], but we may certainly take nouns such
as the following as being standard examples of [C] nouns.) Some
examples:
3.2.1 Although we can start with the and a, it is already clear that the
paradigm is not complete with these alone.
In the first place, there is good reason to include unstressed some
(together" with its non-assertive variant any, which I shall assume here to
be transformationally related; this is undoubtedly something of a
simplification, however, for the relation between some and any is a complex
one - see Sahlin 1979). (Henceforth, unless otherwise specified, some will
mean this unstressed some pronounced /S9m/ or /sm/.) The status of this
some is rather controversial. Neither Christophersen (1939) nor Jespersen
(1949) take it as an article, and it is commonly classed as a quantifier. On
the other hand, others (Gleason 1961; Kahiza 1963; Yotsukura 1970;
How many articles! 45
3.2.2 A second problem is the status of the form 'no article'. Either
explicitly or implicitly the 'zero article' is invariably included in the
paradigm. We therefore seem to be dealing with an underlying system in
which not every term has a surface realization.
We find 'no article' in the following cases:
(a) with indefinite plurals and mass nouns (olives, cheese);
(b) with proper names in the singular (John, Helsinki);
(c) with some count singular common nouns in certain 'idiomatic'
structures (at church, hand in hand, etc.).
Group (b) is interesting in that it comprises proper nouns only in the
singular. Proper nouns in the plural behave like plural common nouns:
being definite, they take the (the Robinsons, the Cyclades). Group (c)
includes an apparently rather motley set of uses where the article is said
to be ' omitted'; further examples are:
(10) Come along, boy.
(11) What about question seven?
(12) Breakfast is ready.
(13) He spent four years in prison.
Maintaining that the ' no article' in these three groups is one and the same
46 English article usage
The one ' no article' form therefore has to be both definite and indefinite.
In the second place, there is a striking similarity between groups (b) and
(c): in both groups the nouns are invariably singular, whether proper
nouns or common count nouns. The traditional solution is to regard
proper nouns as being outside the system proper, and examples like those
in group (c) are classified as exceptional. However, a better hypothesis
might be that we have not one but two non-realized forms: one definite
and one indefinite. (As mentioned in the previous chapter, I reserve the
term 'zero' for the traditional indefinite article before mass and plural
nouns, and the term 'null form' for the form that occurs before singular
proper names.)
We have already noted (2.1.3) the point made by Yotsukura and others
that proper names only take the when they occur with a restrictive
modifier. And the null form is unlike the, a, some and zero in being the
only one that cannot occur with a restrictive relative clause: singular
proper nouns are the only ones that need to add the. Thus:
Sentences (21) and (22) have the head-noun preceded by the indefinite zero
article and are grammatical. In sentences (23) and (24) the proper name
behaves differently, being preceded not by zero but by the null article.
Basically, the reason for the ungrammaticality of (23a) and (24a) is of
course that a proper name is presupposed to have (pragmatically) unique
reference, and it is this which rules out the restrictive modifying clause.
As we saw, Yotsukura extended the range of the null form to cover also
certain uses of common nouns such as part, word, particularly when
occurring in subject position. The examples of 'no article' in group (c)
listed above also behave exactly like proper nouns in this respect,
suggesting that they too are preceded not by zero but by null.
3.2.3 We may also consider one other candidate for membership of the
article set: the word one. Halliday and Hasan (1976: 100) call this an
indefinite article, although they do not take the articles to constitute a
word-class proper, but part of the class of determiners. They argue that,
like many other determiners, the indefinite article can occur elliptically
and function as head of a nominal group, as in (26), which parallels (25):
One in (26) is said to be merely the form which a takes when functioning
in elliptical structures. Similarly, it is also an article, because it is the
corresponding form of the.
However, to extend the article category to words that can function as
headwords only confuses the issues. In (25) the two some's are different
items, the first unstressed and the second stressed. The first one is an
article, I have agreed, but it does not follow that the stressed item is as well
simply because its orthographical form is the same. Nor are one and it
articles because they can stand for article + noun in elliptical structures.
They are pronouns. Whether or not pronouns are derivable from deep-
structure articles, as Postal (1970a) has argued, is irrelevant here: I am not
concerned with the possible transformational derivations of pronouns or
articles, but with their surface-structure distribution. While acknowl-
edging that the category 'article' is a slippery one, I shall adhere to the
traditional view that articles, however they are actually defined or derived,
are at least forms that occur prenominally, not as heads.
From now on, therefore, we shall be interested primarily in five forms
of the NP: with the, a, unstressed some, zero and null. Strictly speaking,
of course, there are only four actual forms, since zero and null appear as
identical. But I shall assume that there are five terms within the paradigm.
3.2.4 The question now arises of whether these five terms constitute a
well-defined system or whether they are more like an open set. We have
already seen that there is disagreement about how many members the
category comprises, and that we lack defining characteristics of article
status. (See also Sorensen 1959.) If the articles are a well-defined system
we should expect clear borderlines between, for instance, articles and
pronouns, articles and other determiners, and articles and quantifiers. But
these borderlines actually appear rather fuzzy.
Ability to stand as a headword will serve to separate articles from
pronouns in English, but the test does not work so well for certain other
How many articles! 49
languages, such as Finnish and Polish, where what are normally pronouns
may occur prenominally in some structures. I return to this in the
discussion of Finnish below.
The borderline between determiners as a whole and quantifiers appears
at first sight to be clear-cut. Determiners answer the question 'Which X ? '
while quantifiers answer the question 'How much/many X ? ' On both
sides we have paradigm cases {this, that; the cardinal numerals), but
around these we nevertheless find more peripheral items. One example is
all. Normally classified as a quantifier, in certain contexts it can also
function as a determiner. Thus J. Lyons (1977: 456) notes that 'Which
sweets do you what?' can be answered by 'All of them.' Stressed some
also seems to straddle the borderline (1977: 455). In contrast with others
it behaves like a determiner: some people do this, others do that. Yet in
contrast with all it is a quantifier: some children like mustard, but all
children like ice-cream. Similarly, any has functions some of which are
article-like and others quantifier-like (see Sahlin 1979). And notice too the
hybrid form many a.
Furthermore, recall in this context that of the five items we are dealing
with, one derives historically from a demonstrative and another from the
numeral one.
Separating the articles from demonstratives is also a tricky business,
particularly in view of the origin of the. Kramsky (1972: 33) suggests that
a demonstrative historically became a genuine article only when it could
be used generically. If the possibility of generic reference is taken as a
criterion for the articles in general, only the, a and zero are clear
candidates. However, I have argued above (2.5) that a lot depends on how
'generic' is itself defined; if it is held to include reference to a subspecies,
then unstressed some is also an article, at least sometimes. Moreover, if the
subspecies reading is accepted as generic, we also have generic contexts for
this and that: This/That beaver is mainly found in Canada. And similarly
for these/those.
Kramsky (1972: 33, 63) also proposes a second kind of distinction
between articles and demonstratives, this time a semantic one. The article,
he says, modifies the essential meaning of the noun internally, while a
demonstrative merely points. This is very vague. In Guillaume's terms, I
am equally restricting the extensivity of the noun whether I say the beaver
or this beaver, as opposed to plain beaver.
A more explicit attempt to define a dividing line is made by Hawkins
(1978). Both the and demonstratives are said to introduce a referent to the
hearer, but with demonstratives there is a matching constraint rather than
50 English article usage
referent, but not as a first mention. Hawkins in fact seems to overlook the
[ +proximate] feature altogether, appearing to accept data such as (34)
which I would certainly query (see Hawkins 1978: 103).
(34) ??Pass me this bucket, please.
I find this unacceptable because of the clash between this ([ +proximate])
and pass me, which implies that whatever is to be passed is precisely not
proximate. The utterance would only be acceptable if there were a time
difference between the temporal reference of pass and that of the utterance
itself: Pass me this bucket when I have climbed up the ladder. Compare Pass
me that bucket, which is fine. (See also Thrane 1980: 199.)
Sentence (32) seems to fail for a different reason: the second this is
redundant, because the initial here /this is already marked for [ + proxi-
mate].
Sentence (33) is unacceptable because this/that is too specific to carry
any associative links. This author is presented, pointed to, in isolation, as
it were, unconnected with any previous mention of a book. The only
possible previous mention would be of the identical referent, not just one
associated with it: Once upon a time there was an author. This
author ...With respect to (33), then, Hawkins' general point is correct in
that the use of this/ that instructs the hearer to focus on some particular
object, rather than relate the referent to an association set. A
demonstrative marks a referent as an individual in itself, unrelated to any
set of which it might be a member.
Notwithstanding this distinction, however, there is obviously a good
deal of overlap between article and demonstrative usage. One reason for
this is undoubtedly to be found in the historical origins of the (surface)
articles. The forms the, a and some are the result of a converging historical
development involving both demonstratives and quantifiers. But a second
reason surely lies in the conceptual relations between the two groups. As
we have seen, certain notions of quantity seem to be inherent in the notion
of identifiability. Indeed, aspects of quantity seem basic to reference as a
whole: consider the early preoccupation with uniqueness.
I think it follows that it would be highly unlikely for the articles to
constitute a totally distinct well-defined system of their own, divorced
from other markers of reference and quantity. Rather, they seem to form
some kind of interface between the two.
52 English article usage
3.3.1 We can now examine the kinds of contexts in which the, a, some,
zero and null occur. With respect to the and a the basic facts are well
known, and I shall therefore devote more attention to apparent exceptions
to the standard generalizations. I also discuss a number of uses and
examples that appear to be exceptions but turn out not to be. I start with
the.
As mentioned above, most studies are concerned with the referential
uses of the articles. For the the main referential usage types are
summarized by Hawkins (after Christophersen and Jespersen) as follows.
Anaphoric use
(35) Bill was working at a lathe the other day. All of a sudden the machine
stopped turning.
(36) Bill swore. The oath embarrassed his mother.
Immediate-situation use
(37) Pass me the bucket, please.
Larger-situation use
(38) Let's go to the pub.
(39) The planets circle the sun.
Associative anaphoric use
(40) The man drove past our house in a car. The exhaust fumes were
terrible.
Unfamiliar (introductory, first-mention) use (most of these have cataphoric
reference; see also above, 2.2)
(41) I remember the beginning of the war very well.
3.3.2 Some examples were mentioned above where the varies with null.
(There is also some dialectal variation, e.g. between British and American
English, but I disregard this here.) But there are many more cases where
null is the only alternative. Quirk et al. (1985) list the following main types
(for British English).
Seasons: in spring
To these we may also add vocatives {come along, boy); certain structures
with postmodifying numerals and the like (book six, part B); normally
count nouns in a 'mass' sense (a shred of carpet, a girl of good family);
count singular nouns occurring in a 'kind-of context (what kind of
house?, that type of book, a better class of person)', musical instruments in
some contexts (play lead guitar, on piano). And note also such examples as
(5) and (6) above.
It is also striking that Quirk et al. (1985) themselves often use the null
article instead of the when referring to the zero article:
(59) More freely, zero article may be used in front of fixed phrases
such as... (p. 270)
(60) They have zero article when they are connected with a point of
time...(p. 292)
Null is also normally used before singular proper names, with some
exceptions. When a singular proper name behaves as a common noun
(and no longer 'names', therefore) a is used (a second Milton). And as we
have seen, proper nouns with restrictive modification must take any article
other than null (the Reading I knew as a boy). Again as mentioned above,
a number of geographical names do not take the expected null, but the
(rivers, seas, canals). I discuss the null form in further detail below, in 4.4.
56 English article usage
3.3.3 A and some do not require that their referent(s) must be located
in a shared set. In (61) the referents in question are non-locatable, and are
introduced into the discourse for the first time.
(61) John has just bought a computer/some bees.
This represents the basic usage type for a and some. But such' quantitative'
contexts are less acceptable with zero:
(62) ?John has just bought honey/bees.
Zero is typically found in generic or 'categorial' contexts (the term is from
Quirk et al. 1985), where the concept of a specific, though undefined,
quantity is lacking:
(63) John loves bees.
(64) This is made of plastic.
(Compare also the use of zero in de dicto contexts like What I wanted was
parrots, not carrots; I said it was soap the dog ate, not soup.)
A and zero are also commonly used non-referentially, but (unstressed)
some is not:
(65) He must be a fool.
(66) As a foreigner, what do you think?
(67) They must befools (*some fools).
(68) As foreigners (*some foreigners), what do you think?
I now turn to consider a number of exceptions or special cases of
indefinite-article usage. Notice first that a and some must in fact be
uncommitted as regards locatability in a shared set, rather than non-
locatable. Thus, even if a referent does happen to be in a shared set it does
not follow that the is obligatory: the speaker may nevertheless choose to
introduce the referent as if it was not so located (Hawkins 1978: 195). This
is the explanation for the use of a in contexts such as (69), where a couple
are reflecting on an event they both participated in when their car got
stuck on a level crossing (Hawkins 1978: 193ff.):
(69) There we were, completely helpless, when a nice friendly policeman
came rushing to the scene...
The essential criterion for the referential use of a and some, therefore,
is not uncommittedness with regard to locatability in a shared set, but the
exclusiveness of the reference: they both imply that there exists at least one
other referent that could potentially be referred to by the same expression.
Usage types 57
(84) What's wrong with Mary? Oh, a man she went out with last night was
nasty to her.
(85) There is a gentleman who wants to see you.
exceptional. As regards (87) a crucial point is the scope of the set which
is denoted, apparently inclusively (hence the). The relevant set of brothers
does seem to be a set of one for the speaker, even though this may not
objectively be true. Declerck writes that it is not 'asserted' that there is
only one brother; no, but it does not need to be. The speaker merely needs
to assume that such a set exists: strictly speaking, of course, the speaker
assumes that the hearer assumes this. (Additionally, one might also query
Declerck's inclusion of the example as a predicational sentence. It fails one
of the tests she herself proposes for such sentences (1986: 28), since the
predicate nominal here cannot involve a comparison or modification of
degree.)
As regards (88) it is not 'asserted' that the organizers 'made only one
mistake' (1986: 35); on the contrary, it is not asserted that they made any
mistake at all. The explanation for (88) lies in the nature of the word fault
itself. It is a peculiar lexeme, in that in the sense meant h e r e -
'responsibility' rather than 'error' - it behaves like a mass noun: there is
no plural equivalent, nor one with a. Moreover, there is not even a form
with unstressed some. It thus makes no sense to speak of the organizers
having committed one or more mistakes; the meaning here is 'the
responsibility of the organizers', parallel to other abstract mass nouns like
'the carelessness of the organizers'. What is asserted, then, is that the
accident was not part of this responsibility, and the responsibility (the
fault) is indeed inclusive.
In these it seems to be the ' total' readings implied by all and everywhere
that rule out exclusive some. We thus have further evidence that zero and
some are by no means always in free variation.
Finally, if generic readings include 'subspecies' readings, we have
already noted (2.5) that some can be used generically in this sense. Recall
(95):
(95) Celia is campaigning about some seals. They are the kinds that are
found in Newfoundland and Alaska, and they are dying out at an
alarming rate.
3.3.7 In the foregoing sections we have reviewed the major usage types
of the five items we are interested in, and also considered some significant
exceptions. Some of these exceptions turned out not to be so exceptional
after all, but others must be taken account of by any theory of the articles.
One way of treating exceptions is to relegate them to the periphery: the
description is then said to cover 'normal' or 'stereotypical' usage, and
exceptions are held to be idiomatic diversions from the norm. Of course,
the more exceptions a description can cover, the better. From this point
of view, the long lists of uses where, contrary to the generalizations made
by the description, neither the nor a occur before a count singular noun,
for instance, are signs of an inadequate theory.
A more satisfactory method of accounting for exceptions is to take
them actually as counter-evidence, and adjust the theory accordingly. One
proposal which does just this is that of Declerck (1986), who argues that
formal definiteness should be distinguished from semantic definiteness.
Forms which must otherwise be regarded as exceptions, therefore, since
they show, for example, a (formally) definite NP behaving as if it were
indefinite, become evidence in favour of this distinction. (Most of
Declerck's examples involve possessives, and I shall not comment on them
here.) The disadvantage of this solution is that, with respect to the articles
at least, a single realized surface form (e.g. the) is said to correspond
62 English article usage
4.1 Oppositions
4.1.1 At this point it will be useful to step back for a moment and
review the major points that have so far emerged. They can be summarized
as follows.
(a) Standard descriptions of the articles have too many exceptions,
particularly regarding the cases where the is said to be omitted
before count singulars, and where a can be used before mass
nouns. Proper nouns are also held to be outside the article system
proper.
(b) Generic NPs with different articles do not have uniform readings,
and the term ' generic' itself lacks a unitary definition.
(c) There is good evidence that nouns with ' no article' fall into two
distinct types: indefinite mass and plural nouns on the one hand,
and count singular nouns (and singular proper names) on the
other.
(d) It is not a priori clear what the category 'article' comprises. In
addition to NPs with the, a and some, there is reason to claim that
there are also two distinct types of NP which are not preceded by
any realized surface article: these we have called the zero and null
forms.
(e) ' Definiteness' and ' indefiniteness' are not simple polar opposites.
Indefiniteness is particularly complex, in that the distribution and
meaning of a, some and zero are not adequately explained merely
in terms of the features [ +count] and [ +singular]. In particular,
zero and some are by no means always in free variation.
(f) To the extent that definiteness concerns the articles, it is not a
matter of reference alone. A full description of the articles must
also include non-referential uses.
63
64 A unified description
Let us now return to these three oppositions and the relations between
them, and the way in which pragmatic factors affect their formulation.
Compare this with (2), where the nouns are not locatable: no shared sets
of any kind are available.
The same is true of generic contexts such as (3) - they can only be non-
loca table.
The null article is different. Since this is the form occurring before
singular proper names we would expect it to be definite and thus resemble
the as regards locatability. Proper names are in fact locatable precisely
because they are names: their referents are locatable within the shared set
of experience common to both speaker and hearer, provided that both
participants actually know the name in question. First-mention usage,
such as an introductory This is NN, is equivalent to what Hawkins calls
the introductory visible-situation usage of the: the hearer is told the name
of an individual in the shared situation. Compare This is the steering-
wheel. Count singular common nouns preceded by null in a vocative
context are directly comparable to names, and are obviously locatable in
the same way (Come along, boy; Yes, father). In such examples as by train,
at church the basis for the necessary shared set lies in the hearer's assumed
66 A unified description
familiarity with modes of transport, institutions and the like. They are
thus parallel to larger-situation uses of the like the pub, the sun. And in
Breakfast is ready / Go to bed the shared set is easily recognizable in the
immediate situation. Uses of null can thus be based on the immediate or
larger situation, but there do not seem to be equivalent uses based on
anaphora or association.
Admittedly, this explanation of certain uses of null does not have
predictive validity: given a noun used with null, it suggests a reason why
this is possible; but it does not enable us to predict exactly which nouns
will behave in this way.
For (4) to be true there do not have to be cracks in all the paving stones,
only in most of them - or at least in a relevantly large number of them.
And there are also examples where the universal-quantifier reading is not
just unnecessary but actually impossible:
In (5) it is the whole set of chickens that is meant, not each chicken
individually; and in (6) the subject NP is similarly understood to be
representative of a whole set. Reference is thus being made collectively,
not distributively, and is thus equivalent to reference to a mass. Compare
Ifs the cops! (collectively, not 'logically all' the cops) and Ifs the police!
(as a mass - and, here too, not 'logically all' of it).
Even with definite plurals that are clearly distributive, it is still not the
case that the reference always has to be to all the members. Bierwisch
(1971), for example, observes that a sentence like The boys hit the girls can
be true even if very few of the boys hit very few of the girls. He suggests
that we need to resort to the pragmatics of the sentence in order to
determine the quantity of individuals concerned, and the relevant quantity
may in fact vary from 'all' even to 'one'. For the sentence to be true it is
only required that there be 'enough' individuals to allow the predication
to hold for the whole set, for the relevant purposes. (See also Nunberg and
Pan 1975; and above, 2.5, on a similar point concerning generic readings.)
Inclusiveness is thus better defined as incorporating a pragmatic all, not
a logical one; it means something like 'enough to justify the use of all for
the purpose in hand'.
This pragmatic sense of all is also evident even in some contexts where
the lexical item all itself is used, as in The baby was crying all night, where
all night probably means 'what seemed like all night', 'most of the night'.
Both of the above-mentioned modifications need to be made to
Hawkins' formulation of the inclusiveness vs exclusiveness opposition.
Although it is undoubtedly a relevant one, it is not equivalent to the
presence or absence of a strictly logical universal quantifier. Moreover, it
is one that provides an unmarked or default reading only, which can be
overruled if the pragmatics of the situation demands.
Hawkins discusses the opposition mainly in relation to the vs a and
some. He also points out, as we have noted, that the inclusiveness or
68 A unified description
otherwise of the zero article is not marked either way a priori but is
entirely determined by the context. In some contexts, where an exclusive
reading is appropriate, both some and zero will be acceptable.
As for the null article: when occurring before singular proper nouns it
must be interpreted inclusively. The relevant sets to which reference is
made just happen to be one-member sets. So John means 'the one person
called John who is unique in the given pragmatic context'. The same claim
can reasonably be made when null is used before singular count common
nouns, as in by train, in prison. These references are inclusive in the sense
that train and prison are understood as abstract 'institutions' comprising
all trains, all prisons. To say that someone came by train or is in prison is
not to imply the existence of other trains or prisons. True, it implies the
existence of other modes of transport or residence; but these will not be
referents which satisfy the expressions train or prison.
4.1.4 Let us now sum up the distribution of the articles across the three
oppositions we have introduced, in the form of a feature matrix. The
features show how the interpretation of an NP varies according to the
article it occurs with. With respect to extensivity, the features are absolute:
either a surface article is present or it is not. But the other two oppositions
are ultimately pragmatic: [±locatable] and [ +inclusive] indicate prag-
matically determined default values; and [ +inclusive] is defined with
reference to a pragmatic all, not a logical one. (The sense of 'pragmatic'
here can be glossed as 'context-bound'. The distinction between
pragmatics and syntax/semantics is discussed further in 9.4 below.)
4.2.1 A distinction must first be made between two types of sets. The
existence of both types is already implied in Hawkins' speech-act
formulation of definite and indefinite reference. On the one hand, there are
'sets of entities' in which definite (and some indefinite) referents are
locatable; these are Hawkins' shared sets, and may comprise an enormous
variety of things, concepts, information, etc. Thus the steering-wheel is to
be located in the set of entities associated with a car. I shall refer to these
sets as 'entity sets'.
On the other hand, we also have what we may call 'referent sets', in
terms of which the inclusive/exclusive opposition is defined. (Strictly
speaking, these should be called 'referent and/or property sets', in order
to include non-referential usage. However, it will be convenient here to
present the description first in terms of reference and make the necessary
adjustments for non-referentiality where required.) The reference is
inclusive if it refers to the totality of the objects ' satisfying the referring
expression'. So the wheels, as a referring expression, must refer to all the
pragmatically relevant wheels: its inclusiveness has nothing to do with the
relation between the wheels and the other bits of the car, but with the total
quantity of the wheels themselves.
These two types of sets are potentially in a relationship of inclusion:
referent sets may be locatable (by the hearer) within entity sets. The
referent set the wheels is located within the entity set 'car-components'.
The applicability of set theory to the description of inclusiveness is well
illustrated in a simple notation proposed by Lyttle (1974). Let U denote
the 'universe' of a lexeme, i.e. the sum of a lexeme's potential referents
within a given situation of utterance, the whole of a referent set. This
universe comprises two subsets: actualized referents, i.e. the referents
actually being referred to, represented by r; and unactualized, potential
referents, making up the complementary subset r'. So:
The subset r' may or may not be empty. In the case of inclusive reference
r' is empty and U will therefore be equivalent to r. For exclusive reference
r' is non-empty and U is not equal to r.
The referent set U may comprise a mass, a unit or several units. If it
consists of a single unit, U is a one-member set and r' is automatically
empty.
70 A unified description
4.2.2 To show how the notion of extensivity can be fitted into this
framework I return to the work by Carlson (1977) discussed earlier (2.4).
Carlson had argued that the bare plural 'acts as the proper name of a
kind'. Now, what is a 'kind' if not a set? 'A proper name of a kind' is
surely no more than the name of a set. It denotes the set as a whole, rather
than as the totality of its members. (Compare Quirk et al. (1985: 275),
who speak of the zero article as indicating a 'category'.)
Carlson himself, in a later article (1982: 154ff.), explicitly rejects this
interpretation of his 'kind'. The first reason he gives for this is that such
a solution would compromise the axiom of extensionality: it would allow
the existence of' intensionally different but extensionally identical terms
denoting the same kind'. His examples are 'unicorns and dodos', 'animals
with hearts and animals with livers'. But it is surely not the case that
unicorns and dodos, for instance, refer to the same 'kind' at all. The fact
that the real-world extensions of both terms are identical - i.e. none - is
irrelevant. The terms are intensionally different because they denote
different 'kinds'.
His second reason for rejecting a treatment in terms of sets is that there
appear to be several predicates which apply to extensional sets in toto, but
not necessarily to 'kinds'. One such is intransitive meet, as in (7) and (8):
Sets and members 71
Examples with an adjective, such as Those are some cute zebras, may be
exceptions to this generalization for some speakers. A general exception
is when the set is modified by a possessive, as in (15):
This structure may be paraphrased as: these are members of a set X, which
set is further specified as being definite - i.e. the set {my friends}. The
members of the set are not identified, but the set to which they belong is.
Compare, with a stressed some:
NPs preceded by what I have called the null article can also be seen to
name a set. The only difference is that this set appears in some sense as a
one-member set, since null only occurs with singular count and proper
nouns. And because in one-member sets r' must be empty, and U therefore
equals r (see 4.2.1 above), a reference to the set is equivalent to a reference
Sets and members 73
to its single member. The proper name John, therefore, refers in context
to a set consisting of one (pragmatically unique) member. Carlson quotes
Postal (1969) on one striking similarity between bare plurals (i.e. zero) and
proper names (i.e. null) that has a direct bearing on this point. The
similarity is manifested in the 'so-called' construction: 1
(17) Slim is so-called because of his slender build.
(18) Cardinals are so-called because of their colour.
Other articles and quantifiers are excluded from this structure (with the
sole exception of generic singular the). The reason is that the structure has
to do overtly with the name of a set, and therefore accepts the two articles,
null and zero, that have precisely this meaning. (The acceptability of the
generic The cardinal is so-called because ...is presumably due to an
underlying structure something like the set [cardinal] is...) Carlson takes
the similarity between (17) and (18) to show that zero + plural is the
'proper name' of a 'kind'. I think it also supports the notion that both
zero and null name sets.
Further, recall the 'exceptional' use of null in 'kind-of contexts: what
kind of house, that type of book, etc. This type of structure explicitly relates
the subset ('kind, type') in question to a higher-order set {house, book),
which can thus be named without a surface article. (The possibility of what
kind of a house does not eliminate the need to explain why the null form
is also acceptable here.)
4.2.3 Let us now gloss the way each of the five articles affects the
meaning of its noun as follows:
The key terms here are: referent set (or 'property set' for non-
referentials), member, one-member set, locatable set, all vs not-all. Using
these terms we can now specify how the articles are related to certain other
quantifiers. Thus, the only difference between a and one of the is that in
the latter case the referent set must be locatable. Similarly, whereas
unstressed some means ' not-all (members) of a referent set which may or
may not be locatable', stressed some of the means 'not-all (members) of
a referent set which must be locatable'.
Since the is glossed a s ' (pragmatically) all (the members)' it is equivalent
to all of the or all the; but each of these is distinct from all, for this means
'all (the members) of a Hcw-locatable set'. Compare also many/few men
and many/few of the men.
An analysis of the articles in these terms thus has the merit of making
fairly explicit the relation between the articles and certain other quantifiers.
It also shows why zero and some are not in free variation, and, since each
of the indefinite articles is glossed differently, explicates the different
senses of'indefinite'. (Van Langendonck (1980) also makes use of a set-
theoretical approach in distinguishing various types of indefinites, partly
according to whether the set itself is, as he puts it, assumed or
presupposed.) Furthermore, the opposition between definite and indefinite
is shown not to be one of simple polarity. The interpretation of' all' in
pragmatic terms permits an explanation of the exceptions to Hawkins'
inclusiveness. The extension of the concept of a referent set to include
properties makes the description general enough to cover also non-
referential usage. The establishment of the null article allows us to extend
the description to cover singular proper nouns, and also many
'exceptional' uses: see below, 4.4.
The analysis also sheds interesting light on a number of other issues,
some of which will be taken up in the following section (4.3).
4.3 Applications
pragmatic sense. In (26), for example, which lacks a class predicate, the
extension of the otter does not have to be logically equivalent to that of
the set {otters}.
Generic singular the functions in the same way as non-generic the with
uniques: cf. the otter and the earth. The genus marked by generic the is
identifiable by virtue of being known to be unique - we know there is only
one (higher) genus otter - in just the same way as the earth is uniquely
identifiable.
As noted above (2.5), the generic status of the + plural has been disputed.
However, there can be virtually no difference in extension between an
inclusive reference to all members of a set {the + plural) and a reference to
the set itself. Indeed, it is to be expected that variation will occur here, as
between Germans and the Germans, for instance. The reason for the
variation (noted above, 3.3.1) is precisely this similarity of extension
between these two forms.
Generic readings with the, then, involve changes in the extension of the
NP. In each case the choice of interpretation between individual(s),
subset(s) and maximum-extension set (i.e. whole genus) is determined by
the context.
As regards the zero article, we have already seen that it 'names' a set.
In this sense it is thus the generic article par excellence: the article of
generality. We have also noted that its usage is not uniform: the extension
of its NP is determined pragmatically, on the basis of the context. In other
words, what is left to the context is whether the NP is inclusive or
exclusive. In some generic contexts the extension of the set covers the
whole genus (27), while in others the extension is less than maximum (28):
In both (28) and (29) the reference is (or may be) to less than the total
extension of the set (i.e. it is exclusive): (28) allows for the existence of the
odd unfriendly dog, and (29) allows other scratches to exist elsewhere.
True, (29) has a paraphrase with unstressed some while (28) does not, a
test which has traditionally been held to distinguish between generic and
non-generic; but we have seen that this test is an unsatisfactory one, both
because some does occur in some (' type') generic contexts, and because we
find a great variety of extensions within generic readings.
In short: the zero article in any usage simply indicates a set, or category
as Quirk et al. (1985: 275) put it, and its generic use is 'no more than a
special variant of this categorial meaning'.
As regards unstressed some, one reason why it is traditionally denied a
generic meaning (see e.g. Postal 1970b: 459) is that it does not occur outside
a strictly referential context, where ' referential' means ' having reference
to individual particulars'; in other words, unstressed some forces a specific
interpretation (see also Ihalainen 1974: 10). We may also compare this
restriction to the non-occurrence of some in contexts of inalienable
possession (*She has some brown eyes): the possessed NPs here seem to
denote properties rather than referents proper. However, it has already
been argued above that unstressed some does have a generic use in some
contexts in which it must refer more generally than to a number of
individuals. With a normally mass noun appearing in the plural some
must be read as 'some types of X ' (some wines); and the same is
occasionally true of plural count nouns in generic contexts, such as (30).
(30) Harriet is studying some horses - the Polish Arab and the Shagya
Arab in particular.
(31) There are some Arab horses which are not recognized as pure breeds.
In (31) the some may be stressed, but it may also be unstressed with a stress
e.g. on the first are. Unstressed some in this reading is the plural of the
'type' reading of a, and is also exclusive.
The null article, logically, does not have a separate generic reading: it
refers only to a pragmatically unique one-member set, and there is no
higher-level genus available, no greater extension.
Our set-theoretical analysis of the articles shows, then, that a full theory
78 A unified description
(32) Oscar found a good reference but then forgot to include it.
(33) Oscar found a good reference, and Joe found one too.
(34) The man who gave his paycheque to his wife was wiser than the man
who gave it to his mistress.
(35) Fred took some notes, and Henry took a few / one or two / a
couple I lots too.
(36) Bill took some wine, and Joan took a little / lots / a fair bit too.
Finally, the distinction between set and member also applies exactly to
an observation made by Chafe (1976). Chafe argues that givenness of
information and definiteness of the referent do not necessarily go hand in
hand, but that all four combinations are possible: given and definite, given
80 A unified description
and indefinite, new and definite, new and indefinite. However, not all these
combinations are equally likely. In particular, the combination of given
information but indefinite referent is a rare one. Chafe's example is:
(37) (I saw an eagle this morning.) - Sally saw one too.
One is indefinite here since the particular eagle Sally saw is not identifiable.
But the hearer can identify the set to which what she saw belongs: {eagles}.
What is known information here is thus precisely the set.
serves to identify the member(s) of the subset: the red table, the ice on the
roads. On the other hand, with the articles a and some, which are marked
for exclusiveness, the reference does not permit such an identification. As
is the case with unmodified nouns, all that is specified here is the set or
subset to which the items belong. The modifier serves to classify the
referent(s); i.e. it defines a subset, as in a red table, some pots with labels on.
These subsets may also contain other referents, i.e. there may also exist
other red tables, other pots with labels on. Further, the set itself is
assumed to contain other entities than those specified by the subset - i.e.
other tables, other pots.
The zero article can be either inclusive or exclusive with respect to the
subset defined by the modified NP (cf. 2.4, 2.5). Thus (43) is inclusive, (44)
exclusive.
The implication is that machine-guns and breaking glasses have only one
(typical) sound.
As noted above-see (43) and (44)-the zero article may be either
exclusive or inclusive, depending on the context, and this applies equally
to ^/-phrases:
(47) Important issues of government policy were discussed, (i.e. some such
issues - exclusive)
(48) People of that persuasion should be banned, (i.e. all such people -
inclusive)
4.4.2 Consider now the variation between null and the, and recall the
distinction made in this respect by Allen and Hill (1979), discussed above
in 2.3. The indicated the outsider's view, the predicated locus (the next
Monday), while null indicated the insider's view, the coding locus (next
Monday). And recall also Jespersen's 'complete familiarity' (corre-
sponding to null) and' nearly complete familiarity' (the). Such observations
suggest that null is somehow 'even more definite' than the. This hints at
a possible explanation for much 'exceptional' usage: forms with null
would be conceptually closer and therefore also conceptually clearer to
the speaker. Since one function of the is precisely to delimit a concept,
such a function would be redundant in the case of concepts which were
adequately delimited already.
The null form and extensivity 85
If this is so, we have an explanation for the possible use of null with
noun complements which 'name a unique role or task' (Quirk et al. 1985:
276). Where the role is known to be unique, the is unnecessary: compare
Joe was best man (a unique role at a wedding) and Joe was the best man
for the job; Jane is secretary (unique role in a committee) and Jane is a
secretary. A similar reasoning may underlie the use of null in structures
like book six, part B: because the head-noun is already identified uniquely
by the postmodification, the would be redundant.
A usage of a different kind discussed by Hewson (1972: 20) is the
variation between null and the in the names of buildings. We say
Buckingham Palace but the Mariinsky Palace, for instance. Hewson
suggests that more familiar buildings already have a clearly defined
conceptual outline and so the is not needed. This seems to account well for
the tendency to use the with foreign buildings, but cannot of course be the
only relevant factor. The historical origin of the form also plays a part, as
where a modifier becomes a head in the absence of the original head-noun
(the Union (Building), the Albert (Hall)). The will also remain if the name
is still thought of as modifier + noun (the Festival Hall).
Another example of the same tendency is to be found in the way some
proper names are treated by non-natives of the culture in question. As a
long-time resident of Helsinki, and therefore an 'insider', I find myself
referring in English to the daily newspaper with the null article: Helsingin
Sanomat. But newcomers to the country are more likely to say the
Helsingin Sanomat. Recollect also some of the uses mentioned earlier
(chapter 3), such as Commentary is by NN, on guitar, come in on
ambulance, get a sight of goal, discussed in Cabinet, and Quirk et al.'s use
of zero article. All these can easily be seen to display the 'insider's locus'
Their acceptability thus depends partly on who says them, on whether the
speaker is an insider or not.
It must be stressed again that although the generalization that null
indicates an insider's locus seems to be a useful one, and indeed suggests
an explanation for this usage, it does not account for all cases, neither does
it allow reliable predictions to be made. Thus, although we have the
nurse's Doctor will see you now, there is no equivalent sentence with dentist
or lawyer. This may be because Doctor is also a title and the other two not.
(The fact that Doctor is a title cannot be the whole explanation, though,
since we also need to know why and when it is preferred to the equally
grammatical the doctor: the notion of the insider's locus does provide one
explanation for this variation.)
86 A unified description
4.4.3 The notions of the null article and extensivity are also interesting
with respect to the historical development of the English articles. This
history is well known (see e.g. Christophersen 1939; Rissanen 1967), and
my intention here is no more than to show briefly how the null article
seems to fit in.
Proto-Germanic had no articles, it seems (see e.g. Hewson 1972: 15-16).
It was not until the Old English period that the first signs of a definite
article appear. Before this period, then, there was only 'no article'
formally. Unquantified nouns were thus 'unlimited' unless preceded by a
demonstrative. As Christophersen puts it (1939: 82), no overt formal
distinction was made between general appellatives and proper names. The
extensivity of the noun, then, was limited by means of the case system: as
is well known, it is when case systems decline that articles begin to appear.
During the Old English period the definite article se develops gradually
from the demonstrative. Christophersen describes this stage as a one-
article system, with se contrasting with (his) zero. The uses of this zero, as
he lists them, are: (a) for the idea of something without substance or
unity; (b) for a continuous object without familiarity; (c) for a unital
object without familiarity; (d) for proper names. This gives his Old
English zero a very wide range of functions indeed: he is in fact obliged
to admit that this explanation of (his) zero form may also be a
compromise, with a meaning consisting both of an indefinite sense and a
definite one. The distinction between my zero and null is therefore a
helpful one here: uses (a) and (b), and presumably also (c), come under
zero, whereas (d) represents null. It thus seems that within the uses
covered by zero no distinction is yet made between limited and unlimited
extensivity. This distinction appears first within the usage covered by null,
in that null splits into null plus se. Indeed, this order is the one we would
logically expect: definites are psychologically more immediate, more the
object of attention, than indefinites.
The indefinite article a develops later, during the Middle English period,
from a weakened form of the numeral an. Here too the development is a
gradual one. If we paraphrase Christophersen's usage types of the modern
a as (a) specific, (b) non-specific and (c) generic, we can say that the use
of the original an as an article first appeared in the first of these uses and
then spread through the other two in order (see also Rissanen 1967:
269ff.). At first both an and sum were used thus, but an had superseded
sum by the twelfth century. The zero article, then, gradually splits into
88 A unified description
A number of conclusions may be drawn from this state of affairs. First, the
extensivity opposition is a helpful descriptive tool. Second, in the light of
this long historical development we would expect to find, as indeed we do,
that there remain fuzzy borderlines between articles and demonstratives,
articles and quantifiers. And third, since the problem of uncontrolled
extensivity is not a language-specific one, we may expect other languages
to exhibit similar solutions. In particular, since the cases themselves will
serve adequately to limit the extensivity, we might expect that (a)
languages with complex case systems will be less likely to have articles,
and (b) when articles arise they may well develop from a demonstrative
and/or a numeral.
4.5 Conclusions
to specify what all the surface articles have in common as opposed to ' no
article'. The two types of 'no article' can be distinguished, and zero is
shown to be neither simply the mass/plural equivalent of a nor always a
variant of unstressed some. 'Indefinite' thus has several distinct senses.
Many 'exceptional uses' can also be given a natural explanation,
particularly those involving the null form.
The three oppositions were linked within a single informal set-
theoretical framework. It was also shown that the set of articles themselves
is a fuzzy one, extending ultimately to overlap with other quantifiers and
determiners.
The analysis also seems helpful to the description of generics, and
provides a straightforward explanation for some phenomena of anaphora
and modification.
Of the recurring themes of the discussion, three in particular are worth
recalling at this point. First, the way in which pragmatic factors impinge
upon article usage, as regards the speaker's and hearer's understanding of
both locatability and inclusiveness: when there is a conflict between a
pragmatic interpretation and a strictly logical one, pragmatics takes
precedence. Second, the way in which article usage is closely tied up with
matters of quantity over and above those of reference (or non-reference):
indeed, the notions of reference and quantity seem inextricably inter-
twined. And third, the way in which apparently unitary concepts like
'generic', 'definite' and 'indefinite' turn out to be better analysed as more
complex composites.
5 Finnish: no articles
90
Introducing Finnish 91
IMP imperative
Q interrogative particle
EMP emphatic particle
NEG negation verb
1, 2, 3 1st, 2nd, 3rd persons
SG/PL singular/plural
Second, the partitive marks the object of an irresultative verb, i.e. one
whose action is not regarded as complete, or as effecting a permanent
change of state in the object. Some verbs are intrinsically irresultative (e.g.
those expressing an emotion - see example (7)), while others are used in
both resultative and irresultative senses, expressing a distinction often
corresponding to perfective vs imperfective aspect:
Third, the partitive marks the object for partial quantity, i.e. a quantity
which also allows the possible existence of a (contextually) relevant
additional quantity, as Itkonen (1980) puts it. Compare:
The partitive is in fact the main case of the object: any of these reasons
for a partitive overrules the other option, the accusative. (Relative case
frequencies are: for subject - partitive 5 per cent, nominative 70 per cent,
genitive 3 per cent, clausal subjects, etc. 22 per cent; for object - partitive
44 per cent, accusative 33 per cent, other 23 per cent (Hakulinen and
Karlsson 1979: 182).) Furthermore, the three conditions for a partitive
object themselves form a hierarchy: the negative condition is the strongest
and partial quantity is the weakest, in the sense illustrated in figure 5.1.
Thus, for example, an object can only show partial quantity if the verb is
affirmative and also resultative.
distinction thus exactly matches the normal distribution of some and a(n)
in English: compare a beer (non-divisible), some beer (divisible) and some
beers (divisible). The crucial point with respect to definiteness in Finnish
is that only divisible NPs may express the distinction between total and
partial quantity: more accurately, only divisible NPs have the potential of
expressing partial quantity, via the partitive case. (Compare in (non-
cannibalistic) English the ungrammaticality of, e.g., *some boy (where
some is unstressed).) A non-divisible NP in the partitive must therefore be
taking this ending for reasons other than quantity.
There are a number of problems with the concept of divisibility that will
be taken up in due course. It is, for example, recognized that there are
many plurale tantum forms which are morphologically plural but
nevertheless conceptually non-divisible, such as sakset 'scissors', kasvot
'face'. However, the non-occurrence of partitive non-divisibles except for
reasons other than quantity means that, for instance, the choice of case for
the object is actually more complex than shown in figure 5.1. Divisibility
is a fourth relevant condition, since only divisible NPs can show the
opposition of quantity.
Predicate nouns take the partitive if they express partial quantity and
are thus divisible; otherwise they take the nominative:
(12) Henry on mies.
Henry is man-NOM
4
Henry is a man.'
(13) Paitani on villaa.
shirt-my-NOM is wool-PART
4
My shirt is (made) of wool.'
(14) He ovat opettajia.
they-NOM are teachers-PART
' They are teachers.'
5.1.3 Finnish has no morphologically marked future tense. The simple
present is usually used also when reference is to future time. Thus, for
instance, a simple present resultative verb with a non-divisible object in
the accusative will normally be interpreted as referring to the future:
(15) Ostan auton.
buy-lSG car-ACC
4
1 will buy a car.'
And as noted above, aspectual readings may also often be inferred from
the case-ending of the object (cf. (8) and (9) above). The NP with its cases
thus carries a heavy informational load in Finnish.
Data from translation 95
5.1.4 Since subject and object are marked by case endings, word order
in Finnish is thus normally free to express theme-rheme relations and
emphasis. (For the details, see Vilkuna 1989.) Compare:
5.1.5 Finally, as will have become evident from the examples above,
Finnish has no articles. Definiteness may be expressed or inferred by a
variety of heterogeneous means, or not at all. The problem is thus to
determine what these means are (and how to find them), how they interact
and what kind of status the category of definiteness can be said to have in
Finnish.
used. At first sight this may seem to lessen the validity of the work. After
all, oral language has at its disposal more channels of information (stress,
intonation, etc.), and can draw upon a much wider context of situation.
A written text, on the other hand, must be more self-contained and
operates under stricter constraints. However, I consider it essential to
include oral data, for two main reasons. First, the expression of
definiteness in Finnish, as we shall see, is in some respects in a state of flux:
while some means are well established in the standard language, others are
only beginning to spread, and precisely these are at present most evident
in the colloquial spoken language. The second reason is related to this: it
will become evident that the Finnish expression of definiteness is often
influenced by stylistic and sociolinguistic factors, such as register,
formality and medium (spoken vs written). If the study were restricted to
the standard written language alone, many relevant observations would
be missed.
Many of the examples come from a short story entitled ' Kampa' (' The
comb') by Veijo Meri (in Tilanteita, 1962), together with its published
translation by Mary and Herbert Lomas (1981: 94-7).
A data-gathering method based on translated texts, whether written or
oral, undeniably has certain built-in limitations. In particular, it relies for
its validity on a concept that can ultimately only be defined operationally:
the concept of translation equivalence (see, e.g., Krzeszowski 1971, 1984).
In the final analysis, a translation is counted as equivalent if judged to be
so by a competent bilingual, or by several such. But a translation may not
only be judged equivalent or non-equivalent; it may also be agreed to be
only one possible (equivalent) one, with perhaps a number of other
versions equally possible. Furthermore, a translation that is equivalent
may nevertheless be non-comparable from the point of view of the method
being advocated here: for instance, a source-language NP may not be
translated as an NP at all. However, for the present purpose these
limitations are not serious ones: translations that are inadequate for one
reason or another can be omitted or commented on separately. In effect,
then, I shall accept translation data as being relevant if the versions in the
two languages are what Krzeszowski (1984: 304) calls 'semanto-
syntactically equivalent', that is, if they are 'the closest approximations to
grammatical word-for-word translations [or] their synonymous para-
phrases'.
We can now take a preliminary, pretheoretical look at three
grammatical 'media' (see, e.g., Lado 1957), in order to see what kind of
98 Finnish: no articles
5.3 Inflection
The partitive in (19) shows that the reference is not to a known totality of
stones; in the same way, in (20) the partitive indicates that the total set of
stupid questions is not exhausted by the ones referred to. In both
examples, then, a translation with the would not be equivalent, and the
partitive demands an indefinite. In addition, the nouns in question here in
1
Published or otherwise attested translations are marked (a) and (b). Here, (a) is Meri's
original and (b) is the Lomas' translation.
Inflection 99
Nominative or accusative may correlate with the, a or zero, but not with
some except in some all-new sentences such as (24) (originally noted by
Eliot (1890) in the first English-language grammar of Finnish):
The original English i s : ' And then it turned and dived down to the bottom
of the pond.'
Word order 101
(30)a. And a shoal of other little fishes put their heads out, and laughed at
Mr J.F.
(30)b. Parvi muita pikkukaloja nauroi Jeremiaalle vedesta pain naamaa.
shoal-NOM other-PART-PL small-fishes-PART laughed J.-ALL
water-EL A towards face-PART
(This use of the essive can therefore also be seen as another inflectional
indication of definiteness.)
(This is a very free translation of the sentence, but the translation little
details is correct: the Finnish joistakin (ela. pi. of jokin 'some') rules out
a definite NP. Some little details would also be a possible equivalent.)
If sitd (part. sg. of se) is omitted the sentence is ungrammatical, for the
relative clause then needs to be placed immediately after its antecedent.
(40)a. The book you had yesterday was the wrong one.
(40)b. Kirja, joka sinulla oli eilen, oli vaara.
book-NOM which-NOM you-ADE was yesterday was wrong-NOM
On the other hand, (44) and (45), with the same relative clause, are
somewhat less natural with no function word.
(53)a. You can give it to a friend (if you don't want it yourself).
(53)b. Voit antaa sen jollekin ystdvdlle.
can-2SG to-give it-ACC some-ALL friend-ALL
(54)a. I gave it to a friend.
(54)b. Annoin sen eraalle/yhdelle ystdvdlle.
gave-lSG it-ACC a-certain-ALL / one-ALL friend-ALL
5.5.3 One point that has recurred several times in the above discussion
is that there are a number of stylistic factors that influence the expression
of definiteness. One such factor is the level of formality: function words
are more frequent in less formal texts, and more frequent in speech than
in writing. Another stylistic factor is register: in certain registers, such as
headlines, function words are notable by their absence (as are articles in
English).
A third aspect of style is the purely evaluative one: many Finns seem to
feel that the use of function words like se, joku and yksi prenominally is
somehow 'not good style' and should be avoided if possible. This feeling
probably goes back to the traditional teaching of Finnish at school, which
would tend to stress that this usage was 'not native', being a result of
Swedish or English influence. Several of my informants commented that
they would use se in natural colloquial speech, but perhaps in careful
written language they would try to avoid it and use, e.g., sama 'same'
instead. (In colloquial speech both se and sama may even occur together:
se sama kirja 'the same book'.) However, against this evaluative attitude
one should bear in mind that the very earliest texts of written Finnish
made frequent use of se and also yksi 'one'. The first translation of the
Bible into Finnish, in the sixteenth century, is a good illustration of this.
Its (main) translator, the reformer Agricola, most probably used existing
German and Swedish translations as aids, which is one reason for the
abundance of these 'pseudo-articles'. Later translations then tended to
drop them. A brief example, from Luke 1: the Authorized Version has
108 Finnish', no articles
'There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest
named Zacharias.' Agricola had (55a), and the standard 1938 translation
has (55b).
(55)a. Oli Herodesen Judea Kuninga aicana yksi pappi Zacharais nimelde.
was Herod-GEN Judea king-NOM time-ESS one-NOM priest-NOM
Zacharias name-ABL
(55)b. Herodeksen, Juudean kuninkaan, aikana oli pappi, nimelta Sakarias.
Herod-GEN Judea-GEN king-GEN time-ESS was priest-NOM name-
ABL Sakarias
A few lines later, after the introduction of the angel, the Authorized
Version has: 'but the angel said unto him'. Agricola has (56a) and the
modern translation (56b).
(56)a. Mutta se Engeli sanoi hanelle.
but it-NOM angel-NOM said he-ALL
(56)b. Mutta enkeli sanoi hanelle.
but angel-NOM said he-ALL
5.6 Context
110
Early studies 111
(In the latter pair the difference of definiteness is also shown by the case
contrast on the noun puoli; yet the plural form in (9) has a singular
meaning, and may be seen as exceptional.)
' The three axis states had already decided on their position.'
(12) Kolme liittolaisvaltaa oli jo ratkaissut kantansa.
three allied-state-PART had 3-SG already decided-SG position-ACC-their
' Three allied states had already decided on their position.'
explicitly that he does not take this category as being restricted a priori to
whatever is expressed by articles in languages such as English, since this
would be to ignore means of expression of determinedness which did not
correlate with the presence or absence of a (surface) article in English.
In fact, Wexler's theoretical position here appears to be untenable. If
there is no a priori definition of determinedness, and if articles in the
article-bearing language are not taken as a starting point, there is surely
no way at all of deciding what it is that one is looking for in the non-
article-bearing language. As we might expect, in practice Wexler simply
has to base his investigation on translations of sentences with different
English articles; yet the inclusion of one or two examples without
corresponding article differences raises doubts about how he wishes to
understand the notion of determinedness. From the various Finnish
devices he lists, however, it becomes clear that he is not restricting the
concept to what is traditionally known as definite vs indefinite reference.
He also includes the idea of 'approximate quantitative indefiniteness'
(1976: 37). Furthermore, he is at pains to point out that many of the
means of expression operate in conjunction with other means, and may
also have other functions which overlap with the expression of
determinedness.
Wexler lists the following devices for the expression of determinedness
in Finnish.
Not all the proposals of these early studies were unanimously accepted. In
particular, queries were raised on whether spesies really was expressed by
stress, whether it necessarily had anything to do with the distinction
between psychological subject and predicate, and whether it was in fact
expressed by word order (e.g. Linden 1947; Sadeniemi 1949; Ikola 1954).
Thus, for instance, a noun might be stressed and in clause-final position
but nevertheless be definite, i.e. have a known referent:
However, it was not until a proposal was made by Siro (1957, 1964) that
some degree of agreement was reached. Siro's analysis remains open to
criticism in some respects, as we shall see, but it is the one on which
present-day standard grammars are mainly based (e.g. Hakulinen and
Karlsson 1979). Siro argued that there were two semantically distinct
types of spesies, each with its own means of expression. Quantitative
spesies indicated whether or not the noun denoted a partial (' indefinite')
or total ('definite') amount, and this was shown by the opposition
between the partitive on the one hand and the nominative or accusative
on the other. Notive spesies had to do with whether the noun had a known
or unknown referent, and was expressed by stress (or word order),
function words or the situation or context alone. (The term notive is not
a synonym for 'notional', but has become a technical term in Finnish
Notive and quantitative spesies 117
NPs such as those in (36)-(38) behave like the non-divisible noun in (39)
and not like the divisibles in (40) and (41):
This then supports Itkonen's claim that such NPs are non-divisible wholes
rather than divisible and total quantities.
Vilkuna (1980), however, takes still another position. She rejects
Itkonen's test with kaikki 'all' on the grounds that the impossibility of
inserting the word in such sentences as (36)—(38) is due to the (notive)
indefiniteness of the NPs here, not to their supposed non-divisibility. She
treats both non-divisible nominative plurals and divisible nominative
plurals as 'series' (1980: 102). This allows her to state a generalization
120 Finnish spesies
about all NPs in the nominative plural - i.e. that they all imply a total
quantity as opposed to a partial one. We shall have reason to return to
Vilkuna's view below, 7.1.2.
Two further points need to be made here. First, precisely the same
problem of analysis occurs with some accusative plural nouns, as in:
(45) Ostin eilen uudet verhot.
bought-1SG yesterday new-ACC-PL curtains-ACC
'Yesterday I bought new curtains.'' (i.e. a whole new set)
And second, with subject nouns it seems to be a significant fact that the
verb is typically in the singular. (This would be normal if the subject noun
were partitive.) G. Karlsson (1962) has argued that it is precisely the lack
of concord here that causes the subject NP to be interpreted as notively
indefinite, in contexts where the notive definiteness is not otherwise clear.
Compare the following pair, where the subject noun is a plurale tantum:
(46) Tanaan on arpajaiset.
today is lottery-NOM-PL
'Today there is a lottery.''
(47) Tanaan ovat arpajaiset.
today are lottery-NOM-PL
'Today is the lottery.'
Karlsson also draws attention to the fact that there is nevertheless a good
deal of acceptable variation as regards the concord in such sentences if the
notive definiteness is already clear from the context: in (48), for instance,
both singular and plural verb are equally acceptable.
(48) Handle tuli/tulivat vedet silmiin.
he/she-ALL came-3SG/came-3PL waters-NOM eyes-ILL
'Water came into his/her eyes.'
For Karlsson such variation is only possible if the subject is in clause-final
position: a nominative plural, notively definite clause-initial subject must
take a plural verb. But in fact, in colloquial speech in particular, a singular
verb may also occur here. Alongside Karlsson's example (49) we may also
attest sentences such as (50).
(49) Korvat menivdt minulta lukkoon.
ears-NOM went-3PL I-ABL lock-ILL
'My ears got blocked.'
(50) Korvat meni lukkoon.
ears-NOM went-3SG lock-ILL
'My ears got blocked.'
Definite notive but indefinite quantitative spesies? 121
Siro (1964) had argued that osia ' some parts' was notively definite because
of the preceding genitive and the clause-initial position, but quantitatively
indefinite because of the partitive. It has since been pointed out
(Tuomikoski 1969; Chesterman 1977; Vahamaki 1977; Itkonen 1980;
Vilkuna 1980) that osia cannot in fact be notively definite because we do
not know which parts are concerned: we can identify the set (' the parts of
this series') but not the particular referents within it. The examples quoted
above (5.2) from Hakulinen and Karlsson (1979) are similar:
In neither case can we identify the actual referent(s), only the set to which
the referent or referents belong: some (unstated) members or part of an
identified set (that is, identifiable to the hearer).
A crucial test case is a sentence like (55):
1985; Vilkuna 1989). As we have seen (6.4), the view is usually based on
the normal preferred interpretations of the definiteness of NPs depending
on whether they occur before or after the verb. Opinion has not been
unanimous, however. It has been pointed out, for instance (Linden 1947,
1969; Ikola 1954), that clause-final subjects do not necessarily have
indefinite notive spesies:
Or
She points out here that a stress on armaalleen ' to his sweetheart' gives the
impression that this person is not Anne, the girl previously mentioned,
and says that this shows how a marked stress can thus influence an
indefiniteness reading. However, it is clear that whether the NP in
question is stressed or not it must in fact be definite (regardless of whether
the referent here is identical to that previously mentioned) because of the
possessive suffix corresponding to his. The example illustrates the way in
which the concept of spesies can easily become blurred. Indeed, Vilkuna's
conclusion (1980: 254) is that if there is a relationship between spesies and
word order it may well be because the notion of spesies may be subsumed
within that of given/new information, although this latter concept
comprises much more than just definiteness.
It would seem, in short, that although in some isolated contexts the
relation between word order and spesies appears at first sight to be
straightforward, it is a relationship that can fairly easily be altered if the
surrounding context is changed. This suggests that the link between the
two is actually rather an indirect one - a point that will be taken up in
more detail below (7.3). Furthermore, there is some confusion about the
relation between spesies and stress, and how it relates to the information
structure of the clause.
One way of describing the role of word order and its place among other
means of expression of definiteness is in terms of a hierarchy, as proposed
in Chesterman (1977), which I summarize in the following section.
So the subjects in (65) and (66) are definite despite rheme position, and
that of (67) indefinite despite theme position. And recall also contexts like
(63) above, which force a definite reading regardless of word order.
Similarly, nouns which are normally contextually definite, such as
proper nouns, can also be made indefinite by the addition of an indefinite
function word, as in (68):
This shows that for indefinite German nouns the use or non-use of an
article depends on the divisibility of the noun rather than its singular/
plural status. Divisibles (i.e. quantities) take no article if indefinite and an
article if definite. Indefinite quantities, whether singular (mass nouns) or
plural, allow the possibility of a (contextually relevant) surplus quantity:
this is Itkonen's gloss of the notion of partial quantity. Definite divisibles
denote maximum quantities, with no implied surplus.
Itkonen goes on to show that for Finnish the corresponding distinction
between definite and indefinite is marked by case ( + partitive), but only
for divisibles and only for certain categories of noun phrase (see 5.1). The
picture for Finnish is thus, at first sight, the following:
As mentioned above (6.3), Itkonen argues that these NPs are actually
pluralia tanta and so non-divisible wholes rather than divisible quantities;
quantitative spesies therefore does not apply. He agrees that Siro's other
problematic combination, of definite notive but indefinite quantitative
spesies, is also impossible (see 6.4). It follows from this that for divisibles
the two kinds of spesies therefore always coincide, and so ' it is redundant
to speak of two kinds of definiteness' (1980: 38). The Finnish system then
becomes symmetrical, with both wholes and quantities appearing in both
singular and plural, as illustrated below.
Non-divisible Divisible Non-divisible Divisible
(sg.) (sg.) (pi) (pl.)
Indefinite part. part.
I nom. or ace. |nom. or ace.
Definite nom. or ace. nom. or ace.
In Finnish, then, only divisibles are marked for definiteness or
indefiniteness. The category 'non-divisible plural' in the diagram indicates
the plurale tantum nouns, which are relatively infrequent and therefore
marked. Itkonen feels that for the singular it is the divisibles that are
correspondingly the marked category.
Itkonen's analysis thus reduces definiteness in Finnish to what can be
expressed morphologically, by case. Alongside this view comes the
suggestion (e.g. in Itkonen 1976a) that quantitative spesies, expressed by
case, is none other than a form of grammatical quantification. This
argument is developed in some detail by Larjavaara (1988), who proposes
various mathematical-logical operations which generate a number of
types of indefinite ('quantitatively open') and definite ('closed') expres-
sions involving the partitive/non-partitive opposition. While it may be an
advantage to be able to formalize quantitative spesies as part of the system
of quantification in Finnish, such an analysis will not suffice to cover all
relevant aspects of definiteness - provided of course that definiteness is
indeed taken to encompass more than matters of quantity alone, as Siro
had argued. A more comprehensive approach is still needed.
are subject NPs like that of (77) in fact (notively) definite because they
could be so in German (and occur in clause-initial position), or indefinite
because they would be so in English? What you see in a second language
partly depends on what language you are looking from.
This problem notwithstanding, the above kind of data must obviously
be incorporated somehow into a description of Finnish definiteness.
(Genericness in Finnish has also been studied in relation to generic tense
and the third-person verb with an omitted subject or object (Hakulinen
and Karttunen 1973), but such work lies outside the scope of the present
topic.)
6.10 Conclusions
133
134 Definiteness in Finnish
We noted that opinions differed as to whether NPs such as the object noun
in (4) were divisible or not. Since only quantities can be divisible, we may
infer that underlying the varying interpretations here there lie differing
concepts of quantity in Finnish, and how quantity is to be ascertained
syntactically.1
1
Variant views of quantity are of course not peculiar to Finnish alone. There is variation
(partly idiolectal) in English, for instance, with collectives like committee, audience, which
occur with both singular and plural verbs.
Divisibility and quantity 135
if the subject noun is nominative. (See 5.3 above.) On these grounds, non-
divisible plurals like the object in (4) are not quantities, and nor are
singular non-divisibles.
The second view (e.g. Vilkuna 1980) holds that non-divisible plurals are
also quantities in a sense, in that both nominative/accusative divisibles
and nominative/accusative non-divisible plurals can be seen as 'series',
complete sets, of entities; this, then, contrasts with the partitive, meaning
'an unlimited, random set'. In other words, this view stresses that both
divisible and non-divisible plurals are 'total', in a way that partitives are
not. Furthermore, it is not just divisible plurals that display an opposition
between nominative/accusative and partitive; non-divisible plurals also
have corresponding versions with a partitive. The only difference is that,
by the traditional definition, if these NPs are in the partitive they are no
longer non-divisible but, by definition, divisible. Compare (4) with (5):
(5) Ostin eilen uusia verhoja.
bought-1SG yesterday new-PART-PL curtains-PART-PL
4
Yesterday I bought some new curtains.'
Formally, then, both divisible and non-divisible plural nominative/
accusative NPs allow an alternative with a partitive.
The third view (e.g. Hakulinen and Karlsson 1979) extends the notion
of quantity even further, to include also singular non-divisibles. But here
there is a difference: there is no possibility of an alternative with a partitive
(i.e. with a partitive of quantity). If singular non-divisibles like auto 'car'
are quantities, they are 'fixed quantities', intrinsically 'total' in some
sense of the word.
These three views each make the quantity vs non-quantity distinction
across various classes of nouns in different ways, as illustrated below,
where 'yes' means 'are quantities' and ' n o ' means 'are not quantities'.
Non- Non-
Divisibles divisible divisible
Criterion (mass + pi.) plurals singulars
(a) Formal tests of divisibility yes no no
are positive
(b) Quantity opposition (nom./ yes yes no
ace. vs part.) possible
(c) Implication of totality in yes yes yes
nom. /ace.
The most logical position here appears to be the middle one, (b).
Position (a) makes the notion of quantity dependent on that of divisibility,
136 Definiteness in Finnish
which seems like putting the cart before the horse. On the other hand,
position (c) is surely potentially vacuous: if any concept, any noun, even
count singulars, can be said to be a quantity, there are therefore no nouns
which are not quantities and there is no point making any distinction at
all. From the point of view of definiteness the crucial criterion here is the
possibility of an opposition between nominative/accusative and partitive.
True, this opposition is sometimes at odds with the traditional view (a) of
divisibility, in that some nominative/accusative plurals are non-divisible
whereas all partitives are divisible. But this is a secondary, semantic
distinction, which can be made additionally where necessary. I shall
henceforth take both divisibles and non-divisible plurals to be quantities,
both allowing a distinction to be expressed between total and partial
quantity.
7.1.3 It must now be pointed out that the range of senses in which a
noun is taken as ' total', and thus does not appear in the partitive, is a wide
one. Its widest extension is illustrated by generic NPs, as in (6):
(6) Varkaat ovat ovelia.
thieves-NOM are cunning-PART-PL
' Thieves are cunning.'
'Total' here has the approximate meaning 'all Ns that exist, have existed
or will exist'. A narrower extension is shown in the non-generic example
(7), which refers to 'all' of a particular, relevant group of thieves,
previously mentioned.
(7) Varkaat olivat tulleet yolla.
thieves-NOM had come night-ADE
' The thieves had come in the night.'
Two further possible restrictions on the sense of' total' have to do with
certain grammatical restrictions on the use of the partitive: this case
cannot mark the subject of a transitive verb, nor the subject of a non-
existential intransitive verb. One could argue that because these are purely
grammatical restrictions the whole total/partial distinction is irrelevant
here. On the other hand, one might expect that such restrictions at least
correlate with limitations of a semantic nature. For instance, recall the
example discussed earlier and given below as (8):
(8) Varkaat varastivat tavarani.
thieves-NOM stole things-ACC-my
' Some thieves stole my things.'
Divisibility and quantity 137
Here the subject is 'total' in the sense that the whole of the subject
performs the action in question. This means that, on this view, Finnish
sometimes has to make distinctions of totality that are irrelevant in
English. Consider also the following example: (9a) is the original English.
(9)a. This summer shop windows are adorned with satirical
posters ...(Guardian, 23 August 1975.)
sizes, this original locative meaning has given rise to a great many
apparently diverse functions - there are several others that I have not
touched on at all, since they do not relate directly to the theme of the
present study. Denison concludes that the essence of the present-day
partitive is 'the implication of indefiniteness and incompleteness' (1957:
262). Similarly, Toivainen (1985) sums up the basic function of the case as
the expression ofvajaus, which may be translated 'deficiency, incomplete-
ness'. The 'movement away from' has in time become 'a state of not being
whole, complete'. At its extreme, this is evident in the object of a negative
verb, of which no part is affected by the action of the verb. Objects of
irresultative verbs are affected, but not wholly. And partial quantities are
by definition incomplete. But it must be emphasized that the sense in
which partitives are indefinite is purely a quantitative one. The partitive
does not have anything directly to do with the distinction between known
and unknown referents. The relation between quantity and reference will
be discussed in a later section, 7.5.
(Interestingly, the elative has taken over the original partitive function of
'movement away from, out of, but not its connotations of indeflniteness.
The case can be seen as a secondary one made up of the partitive ending
-ta/ — td plus the extra element -s- (see Denison 1957: 257).)
Examples (20) and (21) are from Hakulinen and Karlsson (1975), but
many native speakers reject (21) altogether. In fact, particularly in the
participial structures the usage is very unstable (see Itkonen 1976b;
Hakulinen and Karlsson 1979: 362ff.). It appears that several other
factors govern the selection of nominative vs genitive case, such as
topicalization, active or passive voice and even the semantics of the verb.
Yet none of these factors has given rise to a uniform usage. Rather than
assign the different definiteness readings of (at least) (18) and (19) to case
selection, then, it would seem more likely that they have to do with the
different positions of the nouns in question, one clause-initial and the
other clause-final. Using a corpus of over 10,000 clauses, Hakulinen,
Karlsson and Vilkuna (1980: 126) found that genitive subjects occur
almost without exception in clause-initial position (97 per cent of all
occurrences). It is thus this association between genitive subject and
clause-initial position that seems to account for the tendency to interpret
such subjects as definite. Other matters concerning word order are taken
up in the following section.
142 Definiteness in Finnish
7.3.1 Several scholars have suggested that one means of expressing the
difference between known and unknown referent is stress (L. Hakulinen
1946; Siro 1964; Enkvist 1975). The following pair is typical of the
examples cited. (Capitals mark sentence stress.)
(22) Ukko oli tuvassa.
old-man-NOM was cottage-INE
' The old man was in the cottage.'
(23) UKKO oli tuvassa.
'An OLD MAN was in the cottage.'
The argument for the indefiniteness of the subject in (23) rests on the
notion of psychological predicate: since the psychological predicate denotes
new information, and new information is expressed by stress, therefore
stress indicates an indefinite noun. Siro (1964) in fact ends up by equating
his notive spesies distinction with the psychological subject/predicate
distinction. And Enkvist (1975: 79) states explicitly that notive spesies
' closely resembles' the definitions of theme and rheme that are based on
the difference between given and new information. However, I shall argue
that definiteness is in fact quite distinct from information structure.
In the first place, it is an oversimplification to assume that stressed
elements always coincide with new information. As e.g. Szwedek (1986)
shows, not all elements of new information are necessarily stressed,
although all elements that are stressed are new information. Suppose, for
instance, that (24) is an answer to the question 'What did you do
yesterday?'
(24) I was buying BOOKS.
Both buying and books are new information here, but only books has to
be stressed.
Secondly, the speaker alone decides what is to be new information,
whereas the knownness or otherwise of the referent is both speaker- and
hearer-oriented. Moreover, there are many nouns that have intrinsically
known referents - i.e. intrinsically definite NPs - and these can all be
allocated new-information value by the speaker just as freely as indefinite
nouns:
(25) PEKKA oli tuvassa.
Pekka was cottage-INE
'PEKKA was in the cottage.'
Stress and word order 143
The subject NPs in these all-new sentences are unknown referents, yet they
are not stressed, not because they are known information but because the
point of the sentence - the real new information - lies elsewhere. (See (24)
above.) Information structure is thus in principle independent of the
knownness of referents, indeed of referents at all. A similar point is made
by Allerton (1978), who distinguishes beween 'newsvalue givenness'
(realized by stress and intonation) and ' constituent givenness' (realized by
the use of proforms and definite NPs). ' Newsworthiness' might in fact be
a better term than new information, since information that may actually
be known to the hearer or recoverable from the context, and known by the
speaker to be known to the hearer, may still be stressed as newsworthy:
And as mentioned earlier (4.3.2), Chafe (1976) too shows that givenness
144 Definiteness in Finnish
The answer is that if this sentence is taken out of context the definiteness
of the subject is in fact ambiguous. A previous mention of an old man, or
a situationally known one, would make the noun definite. The translation
given of (23) is simply the first that comes to mind, due to the statistical
tendency for unknown referents to be typically stressed, as new
information, unless there is evidence to the contrary. We could call this the
unmarked case, the default value. But the conclusion that must be drawn
is nevertheless that stress itself does not express definiteness directly. (See
also Ikola 1954: 241; and Chesterman 1987.)
True, these would have a stress on the subject, which would exclude them
from Ihalainen's constraint if it only holds for phonologically unmarked
sentences. (Sentences with contrastive stress may have initial indefinites,
as Ihalainen acknowledges: Talon rakensi HENRY (house-ACC built
Henry) 'It was HENRY who built a house / the house.') Other apparent
exceptions are all-new sentences such as newspaper headlines, and those
with a generic or at least non-specific (as also (32)) subject. (Generics
would presumably also be excluded from the constraint because they do
not involve particular referents.)
7.4.1 We have seen (in 5.5) that certain Finnish function words often
express the definiteness or indefiniteness of an NP overtly, and may even
overrule the (in)definiteness reading that was inferrable from the word
order. The most frequent of these function words is se, which has the
primary meaning 'it', together with its plural ne 'they'. Let us now
Function words 149
(36) -Taal oli paljo rottia ja--tuol oli semmonen puine roskalaatikko ja me
tiesimme et ne rotat oli siella--et me, yleensa jahtasimme myos niitd
rottia--')6ka meni kalikalla ja--kilkutteli sitd roskalaatikkoa
'-There were a lot of rats here and--over there there was a wooden
rubbish bin and we knew that the rats were there--that we, usually
we went hunting the rats-- someone got a stick and--banged the
rubbish bin with it'
The first mention of the rats and the rubbish bin here have no prenominal
se or ne, but subsequent mentions do: ne rotat (nom. pi.), niitd rottia (part,
pi.), sitd roskalaatikkoa (part. sg.). This is typical. The anaphoric reference
may also be a looser one, to a previously mentioned state of affairs:
However, se/ne is less likely to be used before nouns that are unique and
definite in what Hawkins (1978) calls the larger situation; that is, before
the Finnish equivalents of nouns like the sun, etc. And it is rare before
nouns that are definite by association with a previously mentioned noun:
Se/ne is also not used before 'first-mention definites' that are not made
familiar cataphorically:
Thus, (44) below cannot mean 'I do not like the colour purple\ i.e. in
general, but would have to refer to a particular shade of purple, one that
was in the immediate situation or that had already been mentioned in the
discourse:
These restrictions on the use of se/ne seem to suggest that its meaning,
when used prenominally, is primarily a demonstrative one. In its
Function words 151
Similarly, (47) -
- can only have the reading 'that particular known pub', not 'pubs / the
pub generically, as an institution'.
There is one further complicating factor concerning the status and use
of se that needs to be mentioned. Despite the generalizations made above,
it does occasionally occur colloquially in ways that seem exceptional, in
that they do show se with larger-situation uniques or generics. Typical
examples are:
in particular by the fact that in this usage it does not occur in clause-initial
position, but is preceded by a stressed constituent. This may require
subject-verb inversion, as in (49), and also (50) and (51):
(50) Paistaa se pdivd viela huomennakin.
shines-3SG it-NOM day-NOM still tomorrow-EMP
'The day will shine tomorrow, too.' (i.e. 'Tomorrow is another day.')
This pragmatic particle se can even be non-adjacent to its NP:
(51) Tulee se viela sinunkin vuorosi.
comes-3SG it-NOM still your-EMP turn-NOM-your
' Your turn will come one day.'
The partitive form of se - sitd - has also developed into an invariant
pragmatic particle in its own right (A. Hakulinen 1975). This particle
function of se (and sitd) should nevertheless be kept distinct from its
article-like function (but see Markkanen 1985 on 'emotional deixis').
7.4.3 Whether one calls these function words articles proper or not
depends of course on one's definition of articles. Szwedek (1975),
discussing corresponding function words in Polish, argues that if a
function word must be added to get a given reading it can then be
considered a substitute article. By this criterion the Finnish forms are
sometimes articles and sometimes not, since they are by no means always
compulsory. Korchmaros (1983) suggests that only when a class of
morphemes develops whose primary function is the indication of
definiteness (as opposed, say, to having a more general deictic function)
can we speak of a genuine article category; and this is not yet true of
Finnish. Yet another test that has been proposed for article status is
whether the candidate items can also be used generically; as we have seen,
this is not the case for the Finnish function words in question.
Since the usage of these words is clearly more restricted than that of
articles, both functionally and stylistically, it would be more accurate to
call them embryo articles. In a paper discussing the probable future
development of the Finnish language, F. Karlsson (1975) suggests that it
is precisely se and yksi that come closest to the articles of, for example,
English, and that these two forms will very likely continue to spread in
Finnish, under the influence of the informal spoken language (and also, no
doubt, the increasing influence of English itself). One sign of this might be
the evident possibility of yksi also with plurals, so that it would
occasionally approach the usage of a plural indefinite article as well, as in:
The present stage of the progress of these forms towards article status
may be gauged both from their generality in speech and from the contexts
in which they are felt to be well-nigh compulsory, even in a more formal
154 Definiteness in Finnish
register. For se/ne, as we have seen, these are primarily anaphoric and
cataphoric contexts, and more frequently with clause-final definite nouns.
Se also appears to be necessary if divisible partitive objects must be made
unambiguously definite: recall examples like (57).
(57) Soimme sit a kakkua.
ate-1 PL it-PART cake-PART
'We were eating the cake.' (e.g. that special cake we both know
about)
The indefinite function words are felt to be necessary particularly in
clause-initial position if there is the risk that a noun there will otherwise
be read as definite (see 5.5).
A final comment: apparently the further east one goes among the
Baltic-Finnic languages and dialects, the rarer this article-like usage of
function words is (Terho Itkonen, personal communication, 1987). This
might indicate a decreasing degree of influence from major article-bearing
languages such as the Germanic and Romance families, plus perhaps a
concomitant increasing influence from article-less Russian.
nouns participate in both oppositions: that is, none of the cells ABCD are
empty. For cells A and D the situation is not disputed: cell A is illustrated
by the subject noun in (58) and cell D by that in (59).
As discussed earlier, the problem cells have traditionally been B (see 6.3)
and C (see 6.4). Preconceptions about how the data should be interpreted
have usually led to the rejection of cells B and C, as representing
impossible combinations. However, let us now approach the issue from a
different angle, and reconsider the status of these cells.
Cell B has been rejected on the grounds that possible candidate NPs are
not divisible and therefore not quantities at all. As I argued in 7.1, such
a view takes divisibility as the primary term and quantity as secondary. It
would surely seem more logical to take quantity as primary and divisibility
as secondary: of nouns that are quantities, some are divisible and some
not. Quantity NPs can be defined quite simply as those which are either
mass nouns or plurals; they therefore denote either mass quantities (sand)
or count quantities (grains). Their divisibility status is irrelevant to the
matrix. From this point of view, cell B is represented by the clause-final
NPs in examples like:
7.5.3 If none of the cells in the matrix are empty, in accordance with the
analysis presented above, there are of course no general inferences to be
made from one opposition to another. That is, the quantity value cannot
158 Definiteness in Finnish
be inferred from the reference value, and vice versa. The only inferences
that are possible are those covering a subset of all NPs (see also
Chesterman 1977). This subset comprises NPs that are divisible in the
traditional sense (see 7.1 above).
The first possible inference is a statistical one. Divisible nouns that are
quantitatively total will normally be inferred to be referentially definite.
The exceptions to this tendency are similar to the exceptions to the No
Initial Indefinite Constraint: generics, quasi-generics, all-new contexts and
the like. This inference is thus another example of a default reading: nouns
that are both divisible and total will be read as definite unless circumstances
indicate the contrary. The reasoning behind this inference is presumably
that if a quantity is known to be total it must also (normally) be
referentially known a priori.
The second inference is a logical one: if a divisible noun is marked for
partial quantity, the interpretation must be that the referents themselves
are referentially indefinite, even though the set to which they belong may
be known.
Both these inferences are from quantity to reference, not the other way
round. This is of course because the quantity of non-oblique nouns is
overtly marked in Finnish, whereas referential definiteness is seldom
expressed directly.
7.6 Conclusions
7.6.1 First of all, it must be appreciated that for a great many Finnish
NPs there is no syntactic marker of any kind which would indicate
definiteness or indefiniteness. In these cases recourse must be had to the
context; or, more accurately, in these cases it is not necessary to mark
(in)definiteness at all on the NP itself. The data available for an analysis
of definiteness in Finnish are thus only a subset of all NPs, and rather a
limited subset, too. It is principally this fact that leads to the generally
accepted view (e.g. Vilkuna 1980: 246) that definiteness is not a syntactic
category in Finnish, in the sense that Finnish lacks features whose explicit
function is solely to express definiteness. However, it does not follow from
this that whatever status definiteness has in Finnish, it can be subsumed
under the given/new distinction, which seems to be Vilkuna's view. Recall
the argument presented in 7.3: the (in)definiteness of referents cannot be
made identical to information structure.
Furthermore, a careful distinction must be preserved between means of
Conclusions 159
inferred are not of equal strength: some take precedence over others. The
various means thus constitute a hierarchy (also discussed, with a slightly
different analysis, in Chesterman 1977; see 6.6 above). It is this hierarchy
(of referential definiteness) that explains many of the apparently
exceptional examples I have cited.
At the lowest, weakest end of the hierarchy we have word order as an
expression of information structure, which may allow a correct inference
of definiteness or indefiniteness. Yet these inferences are overruled by any
of the means occurring higher up the hierarchy.
The next lowest level contains nouns that are normally 'intrinsically'
definite, such as uniques (aurinko 'the sun') and proper nouns. These
remain definite regardless of their position or their status as new or given
information - unless there are other means present of a higher priority.
Above these intrinsic definites we have function words, which can
change readings derived from the lower levels. For instance, an indefinite
function-word can change the status of a proper noun (joku Pauli' some
Pauli or other'), or of a noun that is normally unique {eras pddministeri
'a prime minister', i.e. not the present one of the country in question).
Function words also overrule inferences from word order - see in
particular 5.5.
Readings based on function words can themselves sometimes be
overruled by case: the partitive (of quantity) rules out a referential
definiteness reading. Thus niitd autoja (part, pi) ('some of the/those cars')
has referents that are indefinite in the sense that the hearer cannot identify
which actual cars are being referred to; he can only identify the set (' the
cars') to which the referents belong. This principle also accounts for some
of the exceptions to the No Initial Indefinite Constraint. Examples like
(70) show clause-initial position taken by a partitive noun, which rules out
a definite referent.
(70) Rahaa tarvitaan tahan projektiin.
money-PART one-needs this-ILL project-ILL
'Money is needed for this project.'
Recall also examples like (71), where there is also a partitive noun, this
time quantified by a nominative.
(71) Joukko sotilaita / Parvi pikkukaloja ilmestyi.
group-NOM soldiers-PART / shoal-NOM little-fishes-PART appeared
4
A group of soldiers / A shoal of little fish appeared.'
Similarly, we have seen that divisible nouns in the nominative or
Conclusions 161
(recall examples such as The man who took the wickets in forgot one). In
Finnish default readings are frequent in the interpretation of the
identifiability of referents: for instance, a clause-initial referent will be
read as definite unless, for example, context explicitly requires an
indefinite reading. It is interesting to note that the default readings in both
languages relate to what seems to be the 'weaker' component of
definiteness in each case: in English quantity is less central than reference,
whereas in Finnish quantity is the more central concept.
Fourthly, in addition to the need to incorporate pragmatic, contextual
factors into the description, we have also seen (7.3.4) that in some respects
also a textual factor such as word order can have a similar 'definiteness
effect' on the reading of an NP in each language.
Finally, both descriptions have occasionally needed to have recourse to
concepts that are scalar rather than absolute. Genericness in English
seems to be essentially a scalar concept, with a wide range of possible
extension, and so does totality in Finnish.
1
Zehler and Brewer (1982) also mention the over-extended use of the as the main article
error type among native-speaking children beyond the initial developmental stages, before
final mastery of article usage.
166 English and Finnish contrasted
locatable non-locatable
identifiable non-identifiable
[all] [one]
divisible (total, inclusive) + —
divisible (partial, exclusive) — —
non-divisible singular (inclusive) -I- +
non-divisible singular (exclusive) — +
non-divisible plural (total, inclusive) + —
Correspondences 169
8.2 Correspondences
8.2.1 The foregoing chapters have shown that there are few direct links
between a given English article and specific features of Finnish syntax; in
Finnish-English translation, for instance, a particular syntactic feature
might rule out certain articles, but often leave a choice of two or more. We
can nevertheless now explore the possibility of establishing links at a more
abstract level, via the shared semantic-pragmatic components introduced
in the previous section. The correspondences cannot be set up via
individual components, however, but via given combinations of com-
ponents. The general form of the argument is therefore as follows: a given
combination of components will be realized as X in Finnish and as Y in
English. Both X and Y may consist of a set of variants rather than a single
syntactic realization. Although I shall use the term ' realize' to denote the
relation between the components and the surface syntax, it should be
borne in mind that, for Finnish in particular, the term may be somewhat
misleading at times; this is because Finnish often leaves certain aspects of
definiteness to be inferred, rather than expresses them directly, as was
pointed out in chapter 7.
170 English and Finnish contrasted
Finnish English
Case + ident [locatable] [all] [one] Article
8.2.2 We can now align both languages alongside the same set of
features. Table 8.2 omits configuration (h). It includes only the articles for
English (not other determiners, which can also realize certain combin-
ations of features, as may be derived from the glosses given in 4.2.3). The
articles here thus represent possible realizations of the various con-
figurations in English. For Finnish, two parameters are noted. One is case,
by which I mean the quantity opposition between partitive and
nominative/accusative (where this is expressed). The other is marked
simply as ±ident; this means either that the referent will be indicated
overtly to be identifiable, by any of the means discussed in chapter 7; or
else that it will normally be inferred to be identifiable, for instance via
word order, in the way made explicit above (chapter 7). I now comment
on each configuration in turn, and illustrate each correspondence with a
few examples.
Configurations (a) and (b) represent the minority group of indefinites
that are locatable: non-divisibles in (a) and divisibles in (b). The example
given above will serve to illustrate:
Configuration (g) is the most varied one, and also the most interesting.
In the first place it includes generic divisibles:
These are appropriately characterized as [ + all] (but recall again that the
all is a loose, pragmatic one, to allow for variation in extension), but they
are not locatable. These generics are thus classified as indefinite, in that
their referents are not identifiable. Singular generics, which would appear
with the or a in English, are not differentiated structurally in Finnish; their
generic readings are thus due only to a particular kind of context. Singular
generics therefore have no separate place in the table. English definite
plural generics {the Germans), subspecies generics with some, and even
indefinite plural generics with zero also share configurations with other
structures. This is in accordance with the general analysis of genericness
presented in 4.3.1, in which it was argued that genericness is not a uniform
category.
Configuration (g) also includes the non-divisible Finnish plurals that
have been the subject of so much debate in the literature (see 5.3). Familiar
examples are
As we have noted, Finnish examples such as (11) and (12) are either
existential or possessive structures, where the nominative NP (marking
that which exists or is possessed) appears in clause-final position, as new
information. The fact that they have the same configuration as generics
and all translate with the zero article is striking. I have argued above
(4.2.2) that the zero article names a set, and it would seem that this rather
abstract quality is something that these Finnish NPs also share. With
respect to the possessive structure, for instance, it is perhaps significant
that the non-divisible examples are of possession which seems more
inalienable - cf. She has red hair/blue eyes as opposed to She has some fine
pictures/some French money. When the possession is alienable, i.e. less
permanent, less nomically true (Dahl 1975), we no longer get zero and the
Finnish also changes. Suppose, for instance, that Aunt Alice comes
running in shouting excitedly:
(14) I've got/I have the new teeth at last! (i.e. the set I have been talking
about/applying for for months)
Example (14) thus belongs to configuration (c), not (g): the referents are
locatable.
A non-divisible object NP in examples like (13) also normally appears
in clause-final position as new information, and it too translates as zero.
The fact that all of (10)—(13) translate as zero, an indefinite article, may
have been the original reason behind the argument that quantitative
spesies does not apply here (see e.g. Itkonen 1980), for if it does apply it
is odd that the total quantity does not correlate with a definite English
article. However, the occurrence of the is not determined by total quantity
alone but also by locatability, and these examples are of referents that are
inferred to be non-locatable since they occur in the rheme, as new
information.
174 English and Finnish contrasted
only way this combination works is if the features are taken to apply to
different sets: in that case the superordinate set {this series) is identifiable,
because of the demonstrative, but the actual parts {osia) referred to are
not. To be sure, the referents of osia here are locatable (within the shared
set comprising this series); the noun therefore represents configuration (b).
FINNISH ENGLISH
tertium comparationis
components
(19) J>aet waes sanctus Stephanus wundra sum ]?aet an plegende cild arn
under waenes hweowol ond weard sona dead.
4
That was one of the miracles of St Stephen that a playing child ran
under the wheel of a cart and died immediately.' (Martyrology 1)
This example also shows that an indefinite (surface) article was not yet
compulsory before non-referring nouns {stunt nyten).
Referring to the evidence in Susskand's quantificational study, Rissanen
argues that the development of the indefinite article spread 'in a wave-like
fashion' through the following categories in order:
Possible continuation: parents should tell their kids not to play in the
street. That is, the boy himself is not the topic of discourse.
Possible continuation: it was young Pekka Lahtinen, who used to live next
door. Evidence of this kind, in addition to the data discussed in the
preceding chapters, thus suggests that the present-day colloquial usage of
Finnish indefinite function words is already firmly established for category
(a) above, less common for category (b), distinctly rare for category (c)
and still non-existent for category (d); yet the general direction of
development seems the same.
8.3.2 There are also parallels between the rise of the definite article in
English and the spreading use of se in Finnish. Kisbye (1972) describes the
earliest usage of the definite article as anaphoric, with the definite NP
referring back to an identical previous mention:
(23) )>2L Eadmund clypode aenne bisceop pe him ]?a gehendost waes... ]?a
forhtode se bisceop.
'Then Edmund summoned a bishop who was nearest at hand...then
the bishop was afraid.' (^lfric: Lives of the Saints)
Later, in what Kisbye calls stage II of the development, the article is used
for nouns that are 'implicitly familiar' in various ways, as illustrated by
the following examples.
Diachronic parallels 179
that some is only a borderline English article since it is used only rarely
with generics (see 3.2.1 and 2.5.2 above). However, as I have sought to
show in 2.5, generic nouns do not form a well-defined class but are a very
fuzzy set. I have furthermore argued (3.2) that the English articles
themselves are also a fuzzy set, overlapping with both quantifiers and
demonstratives. 'Article status' should therefore not be taken to be an
absolute, non-gradable concept.
9 Wider perspectives
9.1 Definiteness
181
182 Wider perspectives
the and the null form as definite. But the analysis has shown that there are
in fact significant differences between all the articles. This is particularly
the case with indefinites, which prove to be more complex and more varied
in both English and Finnish (see also J. Lyons 1977: 178). It is notably not
the case, for instance, that nouns preceded by the different indefinite
articles in English are all 'indefinite' in the same way. The main difference
is one of extensivity, between zero on the one hand and the two indefinite
surface articles on the other. Moreover, the precise nature of the
indefiniteness of a and some is influenced by the different co-occurrence
restrictions of these articles with singular, plural and mass nouns. Put
informally, the difference between pens and a pen/some pens is that pens
is indefinite in the sense of being general, vague, as in they sell pens;
whereas the other two are indefinite in the sense of the hearer not knowing
(or needing to know) which pen or pens, as in I gave her a pen/some pens.
Similarly, the and the null form also express different nuances of
definiteness. The fact that null occurs only with singular count and proper
nouns emphasizes the uniqueness of these one-member sets, and their
definiteness follows as a logical consequence of this uniqueness. The
article the, on the other hand, still retains something of its demonstrative
origin, and the definiteness here derives from the deictic indication that
'that thing there' is meant.
This in turn leads to the conclusion that definiteness is ultimately not a
binary phenomenon at all, but a scalar one (see also the studies cited in
sections 2.1.2 and 2.6, above). The five English articles we have been
considering appear to fall into a specific order on a scale of definiteness,
as follows:
Null may be judged more definite than the on the grounds of its ' insider
locus' sense (see 2.3.2 and 4.4.2). A is less indefinite than some or zero
because of its quantity element: a single item is quantitatively 'more
definite' than an unspecified quantity. And any quantity (some) is more
definite, in the sense of more concrete, than a non-quantified abstract
(zero). At each end of the scale there are no surface articles; these are only
needed for the intermediary stages, where (one might speculate) the
various gradations of definiteness are less obvious. In this sense, then,
both zero and null are 'unmarked'. In other words, it is pragmatically
unnecessary to mark forms which are already ' conceptually clear' in some
relevant sense. To say that an article is 'definite' or 'indefinite' thus
Definiteness 183
implies a conceptual division between a and the on this scale; and I have
of course been making implicit use of such a division throughout this
study. Yet this should not blind us to the fact that the underlying
phenomenon actually appears to be more of a continuum.
This scalar notion of definiteness emerges in a different way from the
Finnish analysis, particularly from the necessity to introduce default
readings: it appeared that some definiteness markers were more dominant
than others. Furthermore, we saw that function words were often used to
'strengthen' a reading of definite or indefinite (5.5).
A further implication of the analysis of English was that the articles
themselves do not constitute a well-defined system, but merge with other
determiners and quantifiers. That this is so is also evident from the
historical development of the articles, from their gradual (and presumably
still continuing) progress towards more article-like status. Thus, on the
generic test at least, some is at the present stage of development somewhat
less article-like than a or the. In Finnish, too, the expression (or inference)
of definiteness by no means takes place via a well-defined system, but in
very heterogeneous ways.
If definiteness is a cline, and if there are more than two articles, it does
not make much sense to speak of a definite article being 'in opposition to'
an indefinite article. Rather, each of the English article forms should be
treated more as an independent semantic marker, imparting a particular
facet of meaning of its NP. Each article form has a different set of
semantic/pragmatic components. 'Definite' and 'indefinite' are merely
convenient but superficial terms for two different clusters of articles; yet
the articles within each cluster are not equivalent, and the clusters
themselves are not simple 'opposites'.
Some of these general conclusions and implications concerning the
theory of definiteness are corroborated by studies of other languages. By
way of illustration I comment briefly below on some work done on
Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Street Hebrew, and Turkish and Persian.
other words, the case-induced reading is what I have called a default one.
Similarly, some types of subject NP can show a corresponding opposition
between nominative (definite) and genitive (indefinite). Word order is also
used, as in Finnish; and as in Finnish the definiteness inferrable from
word order can be overruled if the context so determines. For instance, a
situationally unique and previously mentioned noun will remain definite
regardless of a clause-final position.
Dahl and Karlsson (1975) also draw attention to the similar functions
of the Finnish partitive and the Russian genitive. The selection of both
cases (on objects) is governed by the same semantic factors - aspect,
negation and quantity - although there are differences in the way these are
weighted in the two languages. In conclusion, Dahl and Karlsson note
that a similar kind of opposition, between partitive/genitive and
nominative/accusative, is also found with some variation in Estonian,
Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish. These are genetically unrelated but
geographically contiguous languages around the Baltic, and even prompt
speculation about a ' Sprachbund' in this area.
At one extreme [I] we have complete identifiability of the referent; further down
the hierarchy [II] we have partial identifiability (definite superset) [that is, an
unidentifiable member of an identifiable set]; and further down still [III] we have
indication that identification of the referent is relevant [i.e. salient]; at the bottom
[IV], identification of the referent is neither possible nor relevant. If we then
compare accusative case marking in Persian and Turkish with definiteness (say,
the occurrence of the definite article with common nouns) in English, then we see
that the same parameter is involved throughout, only the cut-off points are
different in the various languages.
9.2 Reference
9.2.1 As an area of semantics, definiteness obviously overlaps with a
variety of syntactic and other semantic phenomena (some of which are
discussed in Givon 1978); this we have seen particularly in relation to the
Finnish data. Related areas include demonstratives, quantifiers, anaphora,
pronominal reference, case, word order, stress, information structure and
functional sentence perspective - to mention only some which have been
touched on at various points. Yet perhaps the most closely related topic
is that of reference, to which definiteness has traditionally been tied. I have
argued above (2.2.3) that definiteness is not only a matter of reference, but
the general analysis of definiteness presented does have some interesting
18 8 Wider perspectives
been that the category should be split up into non-specifics proper and
'selectives' (see, e.g., Grannis 1973), which cannot be paraphrased with
any. the example quoted above in 2.5.2 was
(1) The empress wants a new elephant, but she can't find one that pleases
her.
The required reading here is a 'type' one: the empress cannot find an
elephant of the type she wants, although the assumption is that the set
comprising this type is not empty.
This might suggest an analysis of reference and specificity along the
lines of that given above (4.3.1) for generics, in terms ranging from
individuals to subspecies to species. At one end of the continuum we
would have definite singular specific reference. Then come indefinite
specifics, followed by non-specifics, selectives (subclass, type) and finally
generics (whole species). (See also Fiengo (1987) for a similar view of
specificity as a cline.) What are traditionally called non-referential
definites would not all fit into this continuum so neatly, but many seem
like the definite equivalents of a selective reading. Consider examples like
(2) and (3):
(4) Smith's murderer/ The man who killed Smith must be insane.
specific vs non-specific;
count vs mass;
singular vs plural;
definite vs indefinite.
Similarly, there are many generic contexts in which a logical 'all' does not
give a good reading (see 2.5.2), but which require a less-than-universal
interpretation, such as 'all the saliently relevant ones'. Recall, e.g.:
In Finnish, too, we have seen several instances of the need to interpret the
notion of totality in a less-than-universal way (7.1.3). In contexts such as
these it is manifestly not the case that the referent of the NP in question
has an extension equivalent to that of the universal quantifier. In other
contexts where the NP is inclusive, however, the universal quantifier seems
appropriate:
Given that some contexts accept a logical ' all' and others do not, two
solutions suggest themselves. Either we make a formal distinction between
these two types of context, or else we need a new kind of quantifier for 'all'
in natural language. The first solution has the advantage of making a well-
defined class of contexts on one side of the divide, where the universal
quantifier is appropriate; but it leaves the other side as a cline or squish,
ranging from some to most or nearly all. (See the discussion of generics, 2.5
194 Wider perspectives
and 4.3.1.) The first solution thus solves only half the problem. The second
solution, which therefore seems more justifiable, would be to reject the
universal application of the universal quantifier to the analysis of' all' in
natural language. Instead, it would posit a cline covering the whole range
from some to 'logically all', leaving the actual quantificational in-
terpretation to be determined by each individual context. ' Allness' would
thus be an area of semantics where it is not helpful to apply standard logic.
Indeed, it would seem to illustrate very precisely the general claim made
by Strawson (1950: 344) that 'neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules
give the exact logic for any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary
language has no exact logic'.
9.3.3 The need for a fuzzy logic in linguistics is a reflection of the more
general non-exactness that is increasingly seen to hold between knowledge
or theory and the facts of reality. The mathematical formalization of fuzzy
sets was pioneered by Zadeh (1965); for more recent work see, for
example, Lakoff (1972, 1973), Kandel (1986), Zimmerman (1985).
Whereas in traditional logic an element x either belongs to a set A or
does not, in fuzzy logic this membership (JI) is a matter of degree, so that
aA (x) denotes the degree of membership of the element x in the set A.
Traditional logic is thus a special case, where |i happens to be either 0 or
1. In the formalization, then, each element appears together with its degree
of membership, for example as an ordered pair.
I suggested above (9.1) that our five English articles could be thought
of as representing a scale of definiteness. Assume now, for the sake of
convenience, that they are spaced along this scale at points designated as
196 Wider perspectives
0, 0*2, 0-4, 0*8, and 1. In fuzzy-logical terms, let this scale represent degree
of membership of the set A {definiteness markers}. The set can then be
defined as follows:
A = {zero/0 + some/0-2 + a/0-4 + the/O-% + null/1}
The complementary set A' - {indefiniteness markers} - would of course
be:
{null/0 + the/0-2 + a/0-6 + some/OS + zero/1}
One can furthermore define subsets according to a given criterial degree
oe of membership of a set A. Thus, if a = 0-5, then for our set
A0.5 = {the, null}
and the complementary set A' is
1
See Giotta (1986) for a fuzzy-set analysis of the French articles. A similar approach to
English adverbial categorization is taken by Soini (1988).
Grammar and pragmatics 197
(9) John didn't regret losing the game, because in fact he won.
If pragmatic bits of meaning, being thus defeasible, are context-bound,
semantic meaning can be characterized as context-independent and in this
sense invariant. Now, it has been one of the themes of the present study
to show that definiteness is both semantic and pragmatic (see also
Holmback (1982) for a different approach leading to a similar conclusion).
At several points it has been necessary to appeal to the idea of a default
reading, or to the overruling influence of context; and in terms of the
Grice/Levinson analysis, a default reading is precisely one that is
defeasible. There have also been other stages in the argument where the
concept of defeasibility has been intrinsically present. It will be helpful to
summarize these points briefly here, for they constitute an explication of
exactly where the understanding of definiteness needs to have recourse to
pragmatic factors, and thus illustrate how the whole concept of
definiteness seems to straddle the borderline between semantics and
pragmatics. (At the same time, it should of course be recalled that
definiteness also involves a number of clearly syntactic factors, discussed,
for example, in chapter 7 for Finnish.)
198 Wider perspectives
9.5.1 It will have been noticed that the general analysis of definiteness
proposed in this study is not bound to any particular grammatical model,
such as transformational grammar. Rather, the analysis is at a
pretheoretical level, dealing with aspects of semantics, pragmatics and
formal distribution which would need to be taken account of in any
adequate grammatical theory. The only evident bias, manifest in the form
of the componential analysis suggested, is towards a model that is
semantically based, not one with an exclusively syntactic deep structure.
At this pre- or metatheoretical level, however, the analysis and the
evidence it is based on does seem to favour certain kinds of theories or
grammatical models, as opposed to certain other kinds. In other words, it
draws attention to certain aspects of language use and language structure
A non-Aristotelian paradigm? 201
9.5.2 There are a number of issues in the present study that have a
direct bearing on the above points. Several concepts that have arisen in the
course of this analysis of definiteness show the inadequacy of
'Aristotelian' thinking as Korzybski summarizes it.
First, we have seen that Hawkins' concept of inclusiveness is ultimately
202 Wider perspectives
a pragmatic one. 'Total' sets often turn out to be fuzzy, rather than
logically 'total'. And with regard to exclusiveness, as Vilkuna (1980)
points out, it is not so much the case that i t ' asserts not-all'; it merely does
not assert all. (Hawkins himself does not use the term 'assert' in this
context; rather, he speaks of 'referring' to the totality of objects (1978:
167) or to 'not-all' of the potential referents (1978: 187).) We have also
seen that the concept of totality in Finnish has woolly edges. And in both
languages generic reference has a wide range of interpretation: the
reference is by no means always to 'all' of a species (see in particular 2.5
and 4.3.1).
Second, a number of concepts that we have examined have turned out
not to be two-value, black-and-white ones, but scalar. These include
definiteness itself (see 9.1) and also reference (see 9.2): the evidence
suggests that both these are semantic continua. Neither is the whole
matter of countability a clear-cut issue. We have noted that most nouns
can shift from one category to another, and that in fact the nouns which
cannot do so are rather a minority. But there are also nouns which seem
to be neither exclusively count nor exclusively mass, at least on well-
established syntactic criteria. That is, there are nouns which are count on
one criterion but mass on another. For example, the noun say, as in have
a say, is count because it takes a, yet it has no plural, like a mass noun (the
workers should also have their say/*says). Compare also idiomatic usages
like lend a hand: in a plural context we do not get *they all lent their hands,
but they all lent a hand. Such idioms of course count as fixed usage, yet
they do seem to occupy a mid-position between count and mass.
Another concept that also seems to be ultimately scalar is that of the
shared set, in Hawkins' sense (see 2.2.1). It is well-nigh impossible to state
a priori the point at which a set is no longer shared but non-shared: rather,
there is a gradient between the two extremes. At the syntactic level, the
category 'article' itself also appears not to be a well-defined one (see
3.2.4).
Third, as was discussed above in 9.4, it has become clear throughout
this study that pragmatic factors - deriving from the environment of the
phenomenon under study-are of paramount importance in the in-
terpretation of definiteness. In particular, recall again the concept of the
default reading, which was introduced at several points (e.g. 4.1.3, 7.3,
7.6.2) in order to account for the overriding influence of contextual or
situational features which take precedence over a definiteness interpret-
ation based on syntactic features alone.
A non-Aristotelian paradigm ? 203
9.5.3 It was Sapir (1921: 39) who famously stated that 'all grammars
leak'. There actually seem to be two distinct kinds of leakage. One kind
is purely distributional, and is familiar from acceptability and quantific-
ational studies: there are many structures which are acceptable or
preferred for some speakers yet unacceptable or borderline for others. The
other type is more relevant to the present argument: we could call it
'intrinsic leakage'. By this I mean that the very distinctions and categories
of the theoretical description of the grammatical system itself are not
clear-cut but fuzzy, and necessarily so, because of the intrinsic nature of
the system being described. This intrinsic leakage is the kind that underlies
non-Aristotelian linguistics.
An early argument along such non-Aristotelian lines appears in
Hockett's The state of the art (1968), a critique of early transformational
grammar. Hockett's major point was that language is not a well-defined
system, and therefore not amenable to the kind of mathematical analysis
Chomsky had in mind at that time.
Non-Aristotelian ideas are most evident in the work of Ross and Lakoff
dating from the early seventies. In 1972 Ross introduced the concept of
the linguistic ' squish' to describe the kind of fuzzy overlap that occurred
between apparently discrete syntactic categories such as verb and
adjective. And with Lakoff (1973) 'fuzzy grammar' enters linguistic
terminology. Lakoff s summary there of Ross's work is worth citing: the
similarities with Korzybski's summary of his non-Aristotelian ideas are
striking. In Lakoff s words, Ross's general results are as follows (Lakoff
1973: 271):
(i) Rules of grammar do not simply apply or fail to apply; rather they apply
to a degree.
(ii) Grammatical elements are not simply members or nonmembers of
grammatical categories; rather they are members to a degree.
(iii) Grammatical constructions are not simply islands or nonislands; rather
they may be islands to a degree.
(iv) Grammatical constructions are not simply environments or non-
environments for rules; rather they may be environments to a degree.
(v) Grammatical phenomena form hierarchies which are largely constant
from speaker to speaker, and in many cases, from language to language.
(vi) Different speakers (and different languages) will have different ac-
ceptability thresholds among these hierarchies.
pioneered by Labov - see e.g. Labov 1972.) Lakoff goes on to develop his
notion of fuzzy grammar with relation to the fuzzy sets of fuzzy logic (e.g.
Lakoff 1987). It would seem that this is the direction in which linguistics
will need to develop, particularly if it seeks to underline its status as an
empirical science. And this brings me to the last major point I wish to
raise.
linguistics must come to terms with this if it truly seeks to describe what
is in the mind of the speaker. A major recent statement along these lines
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References 213
216
Author index 217
Itkonen, T., 91, 92, 99, 118, 119f., 122, Palmer, H. E., 16, 45
127, 129f., 141, 146, 154, 173 Pan, C , 32, 34, 67
Partee, B. H., 12
Jackendoff, R., 34 Penttila, A., 116, 117
James, C , 163 Perlmutter, D. M., 12, 33, 35
Jespersen, O., 7, 12, 15, 26, 33, 41f., 44, Popper, K., 1
52,84 Postal, P. M., 12, 33, 48, 73f., 77
Jong, F. M. G. de, 194 Potter, B., 100
Prince, E. F., 144
Kahiza, H., 17, 44f.
Kandel, A., 195 Quirk, R., 5f., 33, 37, 41, 44f., 52f., 55f.,
Karlsson, F., 90f., 93, 101, 104, 114, 116f., 58, 70, 77, 84f., 100, 111, 188
118, 122, 131, 135, 139, 141, 146,
153, 165, 184 Reinhart, T., 79
Karlsson, G., 120f. Reuland, E. J., 147
Karttunen, F., 151 Rissanen, M., 87, 176f., 185
Karttunen, L., 11, 79, 132 Robberecht, P., 78, 84
Keenan, E. L., 194 Robbins, B. L., 12, 33
Kisbye, T., 178f. Rosch, E., 204
Klegr, A., 81 Ross, J. R., 79, 203
Kleiber, G., 38 Russell, B., 10f., 22
Korchmaros, V. M., 153
Korzybski, A., 201f. Sadeniemi, M., 116
Kramsky, J., 2f., 49, 112 Safir, K. J., 147, 194f.
Krzeszowski, T. P., 97, 138, 163, Sag, I. A., 168
204 Sahlin, E., 44, 49
Kuhn, T. S., 201 Sajavaara, K., 165
Sapir, E., 203
Labov, W., 204 Saussure, F. de, 26
Lado, R., 97 Schachter, P., 12
Lakoff, G., 192, 195, 203f. Schlachter, W., 146
Larjavaara, M., 130 Searle, J., 11, 188
Lawler, J., 32, 34f. Seppanen, A., 17, 32, 86
Lepasmaa, A.-L., 149 Seppanen, R., 17
Levinson, S. C , 9, 196f., 199f. Sharvy, R., 22
Lewis, D., 18, 24, 185 Siro, P., 8, 116f., 118f., 121f., 126, 129f.,
Linden, E., 116, 123 131, 142f., 154f., 166
Lomas, M. and H., 97f. Sloat, C , 16
Lowth, R., 5, 29 Smith, C. S., 34
Lyons, C. G., 20f., 24, 52, 64 Smith, N. V., 32, 34
Lyons, J., 11, 12, 40,49, 182, 188 Soini, A., 196n.
Lyttle, E. G., 69f. Sommerstein, A. H., 12
Sorensen, H. S., 48
Markkanen, R., 103, 152 Stephanides, E., 185
Meri, V., 97f. Stockwell, R. P., 12
Meulen, A. G. B. ter, 147 Strawson, P. F., 11, 194
Michael, I., 4 Siisskand, P., 176f.
Milsark, G., 147 Szwedek, A., 142, 147, 153, 184
Montague, R., 194
Morris, C , 196 Thorne, J. P., 21,40
Mustanoja, T. F., 179 Thrane, T., 20, 51, 190f.
Toivainen, J., 140
Noreen, A., 110, 117 Tuomikoski, R., 121 f.
Nunberg, G., 32, 34, 67
Vahamaki, K. B., 110, 122
Ondracek, J., 122 Van Langendonck, W., 23, 74
Orosz, R. A., 185 Vendler, Z., 12, 33
218 Author index
Vilkuna, M., 95, 119, 123, 124f., 130, 133, Yotsukura, S., 16f., 44, 46f., 81
137f., 141, 146, 158f., 164, 201
Vorlat, E., 4 Zadeh, L., 195
Zehler, A. M., 165n.
Werth, P., 78 Zimmerman, H.-J., 195
Wexler, P., 95f., 112f., 157, 183f.
Woisetschlaeger, E., 147, 192
Subject index
a: with mass nouns, 7, 42f., 58f; with coding locus, 29, 84, 182
proper nouns, 7, 44; not the singular concord (Finnish), 11 If., 115, 120, 157
of zero, 29f.; generic use, 35f., 60f., context, 106, 108f., 112, 143, 159f., 161,
74f.; usage types, 56f.; analysed 198; see also all-new
componentially, 68; meaning glossed, count, non-count/mass, 7f., 12f., 32, 4If.,
73f.; see also articles, count, 83, 93, 164; see also divisibility
definiteness, inclusiveness, locatability,
modification, unity default reading, 66, 144, 158f., 164, 198
accusative (Finnish), see case defeasibility, 197f.
actualization theory, 15, 28 definiteness: as compositional, If., 68,
all, see inclusiveness, logic, quantity 163f., 168f., 181f., 191, 194f.; as a
all-new (contexts), 99, 106, 143, 145 scale, 15,39, 182, 186f., 195f.; as
anaphora, 13, 31, 52, 54, 78f., 149f., 154, inferred, 1, 132, 146f., 158, 175f;
179, 199 reified, 162, see also articles, context,
any, 35, 44, 49 extensivity, function words,
articles: as a word class, 2, 4f., 41f., 48f., locatability, inclusiveness, inflection,
18If.; traditional analysis, 5f.; reference, word order; as a hierarchy
philosophical approach, lOf.; TG in Finnish, 2, 125f., 159f.; status in
approach, 12; structuralist approach, Finnish, 133f., 158f.
16f.; generic uses, 33f., 74f., see also definiteness effect, 147f., 165, 194f.
genericness; concerning noun classes, demonstratives, 24, 49f., 53
41f.; rejected, 8, 28, 43; how many?, determination theory, 15
40, 44f.; oppositions, 63f., determinedness, 2f., 95f., 11 If.
summarized, 68; described set- divisibility, 93, 118f., 126, 129f., 133f.,
theoretically, 69f.; historical 138f., 155f., 164, 167f.
development, 86f., 176f.;
correspondence with Finnish cases, entity set, 69
98f., 138f., 169f.; with Finnish word equivalence, 97, 138, 163
order, 100f., 122f., 142f.; with Finnish Estonian, 184
function words, 102f., 112, 148f.; in 'exceptional' usage, 7, 53f., 58f., 83f.
Finnish?, 153f.; see also a, null, some, exclusiveness, see inclusiveness
the, zero article existential sentence, 92, 136, 146, 147,
173, 194
Baltic-Finnic languages, 154 extensivity, 2, 25, 68, 70f., 83f., 165; see
also null, zero article
case (Finnish): cases listed, 90f.; extension, 27, 75, 136, 172
nominative/accusative, 91, 98f., 11 Of.,
113f., 116f., 129f., 133f., 154f., 169f.; familiarity, 13f., 17f.; see also unfamiliar
partitive, 91f., 98f., 110f., 113f., 116f., uses
121f., 127f., 133f., 138f., 154f., 160, Finnish: as a non-article-bearing language,
169f., see also divisibility; oblique, 90f., 110f., 158f.; generics, 130f.;
107, 11 If., 140f. correspondences with English articles,
cataphoric reference, 14, 149f., 154 95f., 169f.; see also case, concord,
219
220 Subject index
44f., 179; usage types, 19, 56f.; theme and rheme, 125, 146f.
generic, 37, 61, 77; analysed total, see case, inclusiveness, quantity
componentially, 68; meaning glossed, transformational generative grammar, 12
73f.; see also articles, definiteness, Turkish, 186
inclusiveness, locatability, type reading, 36f., 43, 58, 61, 77, 82f.,
modification 189
specific vs non-specific, 12, 29f., 35, 152,
188f. unfamiliar uses (of the), 19f., 52, 64f., 150,
spesies, 110f., 116f., 129f., 131f., 142, 166, 166
173 uniqueness, 11, 22
stress, 112, 116, 142f., 198 unity, 13f.
stylistic factors (Finnish), 97, 105f., 152
subset/subspecies reading, see type reading word order, 95, 100f., 104f., 112, 115f.,
surface article, 2, 17, 26f., 40 122f., 125f., 128, 142f., 159f., 187, 198
Swedish, 95, 107, 110
zero article: distinct from null, 16f., 47;
tertium comparationis, 162f., 169, 175f., bare plural, 29f., 70f.; generic use,
199 3If., 34, 60f., 76; variation with the,
the: usage types, 18f., 52f.; contrasted with 54; usage types, 56; analysed
null, 29, 84f.; generic use, 35f., 74f.; componentially, 68; as naming a set,
analysed componentially, 68; meaning 70f., 173; non-locatable, 65; meaning
glossed, 73f.; see also articles, glossed, 73, 83f.; see also articles,
definiteness, familiarity, inclusiveness, definiteness, extensively, inclusiveness,
locatability, modification, proper locatability, modification, some
names/nouns, unfamiliar uses