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  • Cited by 430
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      December 2009
      March 1999
      ISBN:
      9780511605789
      9780521362825
      9780521368353
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605789
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.76kg, 402 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.742kg, 404 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Grammar and Syntax, English Language and Linguistics: General Interest, Language and Linguistics
      Series:
      Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics
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    Subjects:
    Grammar and Syntax, English Language and Linguistics: General Interest, Language and Linguistics
    Series:
    Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics
    Information

    Book description

    This 1999 textbook investigates definiteness both from a comparative and a theoretical point of view, showing how languages express definiteness and what definiteness is. It surveys a large number of languages to discover the range of variation in relation to definiteness and related grammatical phenomena, such as demonstratives, possessives and personal pronouns. It outlines work done on the nature of definiteness in semantics, pragmatics and syntax, and develops an account on which definiteness is a grammatical category represented in syntax as a functional head (the widely discussed D). Consideration is also given to the origins and evolution of definite articles in the light of the comparative and theoretical findings. Among the claims advanced are that definiteness does not occur in all languages, though the pragmatic concept which it grammaticalizes probably does.

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