Jenks (2018): Articulated Definiteness without Articles #
@cite{jenks-2018}
Mandarin distinguishes unique definites (bare N) from anaphoric
definites (Dem-Clf-N), with a documented exception for matrix subjects
(§5.3). A Chierchia-style ι type-shift handles the bare-N route
(@cite{chierchia-1998}, @cite{yang-2001}, @cite{dayal-2004},
@cite{jiang-2012}); demonstratives carry an indexical argument supplying
ι^x (a Schwarz-style strong article); an Index! principle (Heim 1990
Maximize Presupposition + @cite{schlenker-2012} Gricean reduction)
selects between them.
The substrate already operationalizes the inventory layer:
Core.Nominal.NominalKind.{unique,anaphoric} are ι and ι^x;
Core.Nominal.ArticleInventory.toMarkingStrategy derives the four-cell
typology directly named after Jenks 2018 in Features.Definiteness.
The Mandarin Fragment commits articleInventory_marking := .markedAnaphoric.
This file focuses on what is distinctly Jenks: the typological
prediction (§3 + §6), the bare/Dem competition (§5 paper), the
covarying-readings argument for index binding (§4.3 paper), and the
subject-as-topic exception (§5.3 paper). The post-Jenks Shan refutation
lives in Moroney2021.lean per chronology discipline.
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Jenks 2018 §6.2 (Table 2) lays out a four-cell typology of definiteness marking. The cells in linglib substrate vocabulary:
| Inventory | Strategy | Languages |
|---|---|---|
| both forms, distinct | .bipartite | German, Lakhota |
| only anaphoric form | .markedAnaphoric | Mandarin, Akan, Wu |
| both forms, syncretic | .generallyMarked | Cantonese, English |
| only unique form | (unattested) | — |
Jenks proposes the unattested fourth cell as a typological gap and gives it a historical explanation (Greenberg 1978: definite articles typically grammaticalize from demonstratives and so first appear in anaphoric contexts).
The three Jenks-attested marking strategies (Table 2). Lifted to
the substrate level here so consumers (e.g. Moroney's refutation)
can import the prediction without reciting the list.
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Jenks's three attested cells are pairwise distinct.
Mandarin's article inventory derives .markedAnaphoric — its
Jenks (2018) Table 2 cell.
Mandarin's strategy is in the Jenks-attested set.
Cantonese's article inventory derives .generallyMarked — paper §6
(Table 1, Table 2): [Clf-N] is an ambiguous definite article like
English the, covering both unique and anaphoric environments.
Mandarin and Cantonese instantiate distinct Jenks cells — the central typological contrast of paper §6.
Bare N is universally licensed by the article inventory; in
Mandarin it serves unique definites (paper §3.1 examples 10–11:
yueliang sheng shang lai le 'the moon has risen';
Hufei he-wan-le tang 'Hufei finished the soup';
Gou yao guo malu 'the dog wants to cross the road').
The anaphoric kind (.anaphoric R d) is licensed in Mandarin via
the demonstrative paradigm (paper §3.2: anaphoric definites surface
as Dem-Clf-N constructions). The licensing proceeds through the
left disjunct of licensesKind .anaphoric.
Mandarin demonstratives are licensed (the na/zhe paradigm — paper fn. 8: speakers prefer na 'that' to zhe 'this' in most simple anaphoric environments).
A Mandarin bare definite and its .unique counterpart over the
same restrictor pick the same referent — the bare-N route to
unique definiteness (paper §4.1: ι via Chierchia type-shift) is
extensionally the NominalKind.unique denotation at the API
layer. Parallels Moroney2021.shan_bare_unique_agreement.
A Mandarin demonstrative-marked anaphoric and the bare anaphoric
over the same restrictor and discourse index pick the same entity:
the deictic feature is a presupposition filter, not a referent
selector (paper §4.2 cited Hanink/Schwarz analysis). Parallels
Moroney2021.shan_demonstrative_anaphoric_agreement.
Paper §3.1 (Mandarin): part-whole bridging takes bare N
(chezi … paizhao 'car … license plate'); producer-product bridging
takes Dem-Clf-N (shi … #(na wei) shiren 'poem … #(that) poet').
Paper §3.3 (Mandarin donkey): demonstratives required in both
ruguo/dou-conditionals (example 18) and relative-clause donkey
configurations (example 20: Mei ge … #(na zhi) shuiniu); bare N is
infelicitous (example 19). The substrate's
Features.Definiteness.bridgingPresupType and useTypeToPresupType
encode these splits at the use-type level — proved here for Mandarin
by re-using Schwarz2009.lean lemmas.
Part-whole bridging projects uniqueness (paper §3.1 example 14a:
chezi … paizhao — bare-N realization).
Producer-product bridging projects familiarity (paper §3.1
example 14b: shi … #(na wei) shiren — Dem-Clf-N realization).
The two bridging realizations diverge — same .uniqueness ≠ .familiarity fault Schwarz argues for German articles.
Donkey anaphora projects familiarity at the use-type layer (paper
§3.3; @cite{schwarz-2009} §3). For Mandarin's .markedAnaphoric
strategy this predicts demonstrative use in both donkey
sub-configurations.
Paper §3.3 distinguishes two donkey environments: bare conditionals
(use indeterminate pronouns only — no def expression) and
ruguo/dou-conditionals plus relative-clause donkey
(definite expression required, instantiated as Dem-Clf-N).
@cite{cheng-huang-1996} originally observed the contrast. The
use-type collapse to .familiarity covers the second environment
(the one where definite expressions are licensed); bare conditionals
are out of the scope of useTypeToPresupType because they involve
no definite at all.
Donkey patterns with discourse anaphora at the use-type level — both require Mandarin's anaphoric form (Dem-Clf-N).
Paper p. 514 introduces the Blocking Principle (eq. 23: "Don't do covertly what you can do overtly"), inherited from @cite{chierchia-1998}. In Mandarin, the absence of an overt unique article means ι is unblocked — bare N can route to a unique-definite reading via the type-shift hierarchy of @cite{dayal-2004}.
The substrate has Dayal's hierarchy (Theories/Semantics/Kinds/MeaningPreservation.lean),
already used by Moroney2021.lean. The Mandarin parallel theorem is
the same selectShift instance: when no shift is blocked, ι is
selected first (Meaning Preservation).
Mandarin's number-neutral nouns under no blocking select ι as the preferred type-shift — paper p. 514's "ι is the type-shifter relevant for definite type-shifting", lifted to the Dayal substrate Moroney2021 already consumes.
Bridge to Mandarin's classifier strategy: per
Phenomena.Classifiers.Studies.NMP.mandarinStrategy,
Mandarin's classifier denotation atomizes the noun (CLF-for-N).
This is the Trinh 2011 / Krifka 1995 / Chierchia 1998 denotation
Jenks adopts in §4.1 (eq. 21). Parallels
Moroney2021.shan_clf_is_atomization.
Jenks (2018, p. 513) is explicit that his anaphoric article ι^x
takes an index argument of type ⟨e,t⟩ (a property), departing from
@cite{schwarz-2009}/@cite{schwarz-2013}'s type ⟨e⟩ (an individual).
The substrate's NominalKind.anaphoric R d carries d : Nat — a
discourse-index slot resolved through the entity assignment, which
matches Schwarz's individual-typed index, not Jenks's property-typed
one. For Schwarz-style and ordinary demonstrative cases this divergence
is inert (the assignment returns an entity), but the property-typed
index is load-bearing in paper §4.4 (Pred type-shift, examples 32–38:
proper names + demonstratives composing as Pred(Zhangsan) + Dem-Clf-N).
Faithfully formalizing §4.4 requires a property-typed-index variant
on NominalKind.anaphoric. This is recorded as a TODO at the substrate
level (Core/Nominal/Description.lean) rather than encoded as a
placeholder theorem.
Paper p. 524 (eq. 50): Index! = "Represent and bind all possible
indices". Jenks derives this from Heim 1990 Maximize Presupposition
via Schlenker 2012's Gricean reduction. The substrate provides
Theories.Semantics.Presupposition.MaximizePresupposition.mpConstraintOf,
parametric over an arbitrary candidate type and strength function —
the natural slot for any MP-instance.
The IndexCandidate carrier below is a minimal 2-bit witness type
sufficient to demonstrate the principle's qualitative behavior
(prefer indexed when index is available; neutral otherwise). A
fuller instantiation would parameterize over NominalKind F and the
discourse-context predicate licensing the index — that refactor
belongs in a substrate file (Theories/Semantics/Presupposition/Index.lean)
when a second consumer needs it.
Index! candidate: an indexed alternative is in the running only when an index can be supplied (paper p. 523-524: "an index is required to be licensed by explicit prior mention in discourse").
- isIndexed : Bool
- indexAvailable : Bool
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Index! strength function: an indexed candidate gets strength 1 only when an index can actually be supplied (paper's prior-mention condition). Bare candidates always get strength 0.
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- Phenomena.Definiteness.Studies.Jenks2018.indexStrength c = if (c.isIndexed && c.indexAvailable) = true then 1 else 0
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Index! as MP: the principle is mpConstraintOf 1 indexStrength
— the substrate's general MP construction at strength 1, applied
to the binary indexed/non-indexed competition. Per paper p. 524,
"Index! is a specific instance of Maximize Presupposition!
(Heim 1990)".
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When both candidates are available and an index can be supplied (a discourse antecedent exists), the indexed candidate has fewer Index! violations than the bare candidate.
Paper §5.3 documents the exception to Index!'s prediction: in matrix subject position, bare N is licensed for anaphoric reference (not just unique). Examples 51–53 establish that the exception is pragmatic — bare N in subject position marks the noun as a continuing topic (in the sense of @cite{roberts-2003} QUD-relativized topics), which short-circuits Index! because the topic-marking pragmatic function takes precedence.
Two empirical points the paper makes (p. 524-526):
- Example 52a/b: the demonstrative is preferred for left-dislocated topics (which are new topics, not continuing).
- Example 53: bare N is licensed under the contrastive-topic marker ne (continuing topic + alternative-set).
The substrate has Roberts2012 QUD machinery in
Phenomena/Discourse/Strategy/QUDStack.lean (per memory:
project_qud_dissolution.md). A faithful formalization of paper §5.3
would need a topic predicate over NominalKind configurations
co-occurring with QUD-stack state — substrate the linglib has but
that this study file does not yet plug into.
Stated below as a sorry'd theorem to mark the analytical commitment without forcing the discharge.
A topic-aware Index! candidate carries the additional isTopic
flag (continuing-topic status under Roberts QUD).
- isIndexed : Bool
- indexAvailable : Bool
- isTopic : Bool
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Topic-overridden Index! strength: the topic-marking pragmatic function (paper §5.3) neutralizes Index!'s preference. A bare candidate marked as a continuing topic gets the same strength as an indexed candidate when an index is available.
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- Phenomena.Definiteness.Studies.Jenks2018.topicAwareIndexStrength c = if c.isTopic = true then 1 else if (c.isIndexed && c.indexAvailable) = true then 1 else 0
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The topic-aware Index! constraint.
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Subject-position exception (paper §5.3): when a bare-N candidate is marked as a continuing topic, Index!'s preference for the indexed alternative is neutralized. Both candidates incur the same number of violations, restoring the apparent free variation paper §3.2 documents for matrix subjects.
Decision-procedure proof over the four relevant TopicCandidate
configurations.
Without topic marking, the original Index! preference holds (paper §5.2): the indexed candidate has strictly fewer violations than the bare candidate when an index is available.
Paper §4.3 (examples 27–30) is the empirical anchor for treating
ι^x's index as a bound variable: bare N can covary with a
quantificational topic, demonstratives in the same configuration
cannot. The covarying part-whole bridging (example 30: Mei ge mai le fangzi de ren dou xuyao xiuli #(na ge) wuding 'every house-buyer
needed to fix the/#that roof') is the load-bearing case — the bare
restrictor's resource situation can vary with the topic adverb's
binding, while the demonstrative's index forces a strict reading.
The substrate has Hanink-style resource-situation binding in
Hanink2021.lean (tableAtSit0 over a Room index, with gsKitchen
/gsLiving as situation assignments). A Mandarin parallel theorem
would instantiate that pattern with a Mandarin restrictor and a
quantificational topic situation; left as a sorry pending the
property-typed-index substrate gap (the demonstrative side of the
contrast requires the §5 ⟨e,t⟩-typed index to forbid covariation
properly).
Strict reading of demonstratives across situation variation:
a .demonstrative/.anaphoric description's referent is fixed
by the entity assignment g at index d, independent of the
situation assignment gs. Concretely: if the predicate R is
itself invariant across two situation assignments at the indexed
entity, then both demonstratives return the same referent — the
demonstrative cannot covary through the situation slot.
This is one half of paper §4.3's covariation contrast (the
strict half). The other half — bare N covarying via situation
binding — requires the property-typed index variant on
NominalKind.anaphoric flagged in §5 to express cleanly, and is
deferred.