The Notion of ‘X-specificity’ and Indefinite Noun Phrases

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Other Title
  • 「X特定性」の概念と不定名詞句

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This article will be centered around the proposal of factoring out the notion of specificity into X-specificity (X= a subject or speaker). An indefinite noun phrase of the form α+a common noun will be specifically dealt with in the discourse context consisting of more than one sentence. X-specificity can be seen to show clause-boundedness effects in the c-domain of a human subject, giving rise to n+1 potentialities for a sentence containing n subjects over and above an omnipresent speaker.<BR>It will be argued that universal import observed in a donkey sentence results from cumulative effects: for each donkey-owner, there exists a uniquely identifiable donkey. The influence of Lewis's (1975) and Heim's (1982) works is readily recognizable in the analysis of an if version of a donkey sentence. It can be seen that a donkey phenomenon is best captured in the quantification-over-cases approach. It may be concluded that the evidence points to the validity of relativizing X-specificity to each possible world.

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Details 詳細情報について

  • CRID
    1390282680099205632
  • NII Article ID
    130003565549
  • DOI
    10.11435/gengo1939.1989.96_43
  • ISSN
    21856710
    00243914
  • Data Source
    • JaLC
    • CiNii Articles
  • Abstract License Flag
    Disallowed

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