Perlmutter (1970) argued that the indefinite article is categorically different from the definite article and proposed that it is a clitic version of the numeral "one". But there are, as Perlmutter himself pointed out, instances of "a" as well as of "one" that don't seem to have the semantics of the numeral. Hence a divorce of "a" (and of "one") from "numeral"-hood is called for. Furthermore, t...

the phrase “hodood that are not mentioned in this code” in article 220 of islamic penal code of 2013 and “shar’i definite tazir” in article 115 of this code are ambiguous from figh and legal viewpoint, then we have to resort to interpretation for recognizing their instances, in this regard, three interpretations are possible, first, restricting “hodood” to six famous types and allocating defini...

Most theories of implicature make reference to a notion of alternatives. Interlocutors reason about what the speaker could have said. In this paper, I investigate the structure of these alternatives. In particular, I ask how these alternative utterances are constrained by the interlocutors’ grammar. I argue that in order to derive certain implicatures, alternative utterances must be analyzed li...

the definiteness feature in english is both lf and pf interpretable while persian is a language in which this feature is lf-interpretable but pf-uninterpretable. hence, there is no overt article or morphological inflection in persian denoting a definite context. furthermore, persian partially encodes specificity not definiteness. in definiteness both the speaker and hearer are involved while in...

(1986). The use of the definite and indefinite articles by Italian preschool children. ABSTRACT In deciding whether to use a definite or indefinite referring expression a speaker must apply a pragmatic rule: the definite article is usually appropriate if the listener is already familiar with the referent, and the indefinite article if not. Several studies have investigated at what age this rule...

The definiteness feature in English is both LF and PF interpretable while Persian is a language in which this feature is LF-interpretable but PF-uninterpretable. Hence, there is no overt article or morphological inflection in Persian denoting a definite context. Furthermore, Persian partially encodes specificity not definiteness. In definiteness both the speaker and hearer are involved while in...

This paper presents a referent-tracking and pronoun resolution system for Finnish, a free-word-order, articleless language that poses a challenge for algorithms designed for languages like English that have definite/indefinite articles. To track referents and interpret pronouns in Finnish, this algorithm uses the pragmatically-motivated word order tendencies of Finnish to create an ordered regi...