Depending on the context of use, the English determiner this can be either definite or indefinite (Prince 1981). On the one hand, it functions as a demonstrative determiner alongside that, and, on the other hand, it is a determiner for indefinite noun phrases alongside the simple indefinite article a (Perlman 1969, Prince 1981, Wald 1983, among others). This paper focuses on the latter use of t...

INTRODUCTION Recent research on the language of children of SLI shows a marked delay in their acquisition of grammatical morphemes, especially those associated with the verbal system (e.g., Rice and Oetting, 1993; Rice, Wexler and Cleaver, 1996). In English, the nominal system is morphologically poorer than the verbal system, which may account for the discrepancy observed in the two systems of ...

Gradual Uniqueness Effect: A Pragmatic Explanation The uniqueness effects in definite noun phrases have been the subject of much debate (Heim 1982, Kadmon 1990, Lyons 1999, Szabó 2000, Roberts 2003). Some claim uniqueness is part of the semantics of the definite article, while others derive it pragmatically. Both sides assume that the uniqueness condition is categorical, and so the only thing t...

The significance of error analysis for the learner, the teacher and the researcher is now widely recognized. Earlier studies of error analysis concentrated on intersystematic comparison of the “native language” and the “target language” and drew the required data largely from intuitions and impressionistic observations. This study was conducted on the basis of the following observations: (1) to...

abstractsince heubner's (1985) pioneering study, there have been many studies on (mis) use/ non-use of articles by l2 learners from article-less and article languages the present study investigated how persian l2 learners of english produce and interpret english definite descriptions and demonstrative descriptions it was assumed that definite and demonstrative descriptions share the same centra...

Since Heubner's (1985) pioneering study, there have been many studies on (mis) use/ non-use of articles by L2 learners from article-less and article languages. The present study investigated how Persian L2 learners of English produce and interpret English definite descriptions and demonstrative descriptions. It was assumed that definite and demonstrative descriptions share the same central sema...

Free relatives as in the English (1) and similar structures in other languages have been described as having definite or universal interpretation (Jacobson 1995, a.o.). They act as DPs and are islands for extraction. We will refer to this type of free relative as definite FRs. In addition to this cross-linguistically common definite FR construction, some languages also have a second free-relati...

From the time of Bertrand Russell, the semantics of the English definite article has been the object of continued semantic analysis. Most analyses make some use of the notions of uniqueness, or familiarity, however defined more precisely (see for instance Roberts, 2003, for one recent analysis and review). In this paper, though, we wish to motivate through both experimental and non-experimental...

It is well established in the relevant literature that the second language (L2) acquisition of articles is difficult, particularly if the L1 lacks articles (Huebner 1985; Robertson, 2000; Thomas, 1989; Ionin, Ko & Wexler, 2004; Trenkic, 2007). Typical errors include omissions in obligatory contexts; inappropriate substitution of one article for the other (typically, definite for indefinite, see...