Schwarz (2013): Two Kinds of Definites Cross-linguistically #
This file formalizes the survey's typology of definite articles. Beyond the German and Fering
baseline of [Sch09b], where a weak article marks situational uniqueness and a strong one
anaphoricity, the survey finds languages whose only overt definite article is anaphoric, with weak
definites as bare nominals (Akan nó, Mauritian Creole la), languages with two overt articles
(Lakhota kiŋ and k'uŋ, Hausa -n and ɗîn), and Haitian Creole la, a single article
covering both use families that fits neither pattern. Each language's cell is derived from its
fragment's Determiners.inventory through the substrate's markingStrategy, and the bridging
split, part-whole bridging with the weak article and producer bridging with the strong one, is the
substrate's Bridging.strength. The Lakhota classification is tentative in the survey itself,
whose footnote 16 concedes [Ing03b]'s anaphoric kiŋ; the project fragment encodes that
anaphoric use, under which the derived cell flips from bipartite to generally marked
(anaphoric_kin_flips_cell).
Implementation notes #
The survey's remarks on covarying uses, that both German and Fering articles and the creole la
allow them, are recorded in the fragments' .donkey uses rather than proved here, since the
survey reports no data on the remaining languages.
References #
The German/Fering baseline (§3.1) #
German and Fering each split the definite paradigm in two, Fering's A-form against its D-form and German's contracted against its full preposition-article forms, deriving the bipartite cell.
The bridging split (§3.2): part-whole bridging, the fridge and its crisper, takes the weak article, and producer bridging, the play and its author, the strong one, in German (16) and Fering (17) alike.
Languages with exclusively anaphoric articles (§4.1) #
Akan nó and Mauritian Creole la mark only anaphoric definites, weak definites being bare nominals: the marked-anaphoric cell.
The §4.1 pattern through the cell's characterization: neither language marks uniqueness overtly and both mark familiarity.
Languages with two articles (§4.2) #
Hausa splits its two overt articles: suffixal -n for uniquely identifiable referents, inferable first mentions included, and ɗîn for discourse-old ones (§4.2.2), the bipartite cell of German and Fering.
The tentative construal of Lakhota in §4.2.1: kiŋ weak only, for globally and situationally unique referents ((30), (31)), and k'uŋ the anaphoric strong article, 'the above-mentioned'.
Equations
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Instances For
Under the tentative construal, Lakhota patterns with German and Fering.
The caveat of footnote 16: granting [Ing03b]'s anaphoric kiŋ, as the project fragment does, makes kiŋ syncretic and flips the derived cell to generally marked, so the weak and strong parallel is indeed less extensive.
Haitian Creole: a different type of contrast (§4.3) #
Haitian Creole la covers uniqueness at every level, anaphora and both bridging types ((39) to (42)): a syncretic sole article, so the derived cell is generally marked, neither the §4.1 nor the §4.2 pattern.