The Semantics of Determiners

student(x)
student(y)
leave(x)
sit down(y)

Were we to utter (27), on the other hand, against the same background, and assuming definites are marked for familiarity, the result would be the DRS in (28):

(27) The student sat down.

( 28)

x


student(x)
leave(x)
sit down(x)

The familiarity view of definiteness has the advantage of extending to definite pronouns. Definite pronouns are marked for having an antecedent in the linguistic or non-linguistic discourse (with bound variable pronouns being treated as a sub-case of pronouns with linguistic antecedents). In DRT terms this means that they come with a condition on the variable they introduce which requires it to be identified with a previously introduced variable. This, essentially, is a familiarity condition. A uniqueness condition on pronouns is much harder to justify given their lack of predicative content. Their semantically relevant morphological features (person, number, gender in languages like Romanian that have such features) are important clues for identifying the antecedent but cannot be seen as predicative conditions that are uniquely satisfied.

There are several problems with the familiarity view of definite descriptions, however. (For discussion, see Abbott (1999) and references therein.) One immediate worry is that there are many instances of novel definites in ordinary discourse documented, for instance, in Poesio, and Vieira (1998). The standard route around this problem is to allow the familiarity presuppositions of definite DPs to be ‘accommodated’: add the appropriate discourse referent to the input DRS and then process the definite description relative to this new structure. In order for definiteness to still have a real role to play, however, we have to be able to constrain the availability of accommodation. A successful strategy is to limit it to the accommodation of discourse referents connected to already familiar discourse referents. The problem for the familiarity view, even if enhanced with a constrained version of accommodation, is that in some cases a definite form is required even though the discourse referent is not new and is not linked to previously introduced discourse referents. An example that works identically in Romanian and in English is given in (29):

(29) Ipoteza că Maria a plecat nu i- a trecut prin cap nimănui.

hypothesis.Def that M. has left not Cl. has passed through head nobody.Dat
‘The hypothesis that Maria had left didn’t cross anybody’s mind.’

Using an indefinite form on the head noun here would not be appropriate even though the hypothesis in question may well be brand new in discourse:

(30)? O ipoteză că Maria a plecat nu i- a trecut prin cap nimănui.