Definiteness in the absence of uniqueness: The case of Russian

Daria Seres, Olga Borik

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Resum

This paper is devoted to the study of the interpretation of bare nominals in Russian, revisiting the issues related to their perceived definiteness or indefiniteness. We review the linguistic means of expressing definiteness in Russian, showing that none of them is sufficient to encode this meaning. Taking the uniqueness approach to definiteness as a point of departure, we explore the differences in the interpretation of definite NPs in English and in Russian, arguing that Russian bare nominals do not give rise to the presupposition of uniqueness. The perceived definiteness in Russian is analysed as a pragmatic effect (not as a result of a covert type-shift), which has the following sources: ontological uniqueness, topicality, and familiarity/anaphoricity.
Idioma originalAnglès
Títol de la publicacióAdvances in formal Slavic linguistics 2018
EditorsAndreas Blümel, Jovana Gajić, Ljudmila Geist, Uwe Junghanns, Hagen Pitsch
Lloc de publicacióBerlín
EditorLanguage Science Press
Capítol13
Pàgines339-363
Nombre de pàgines25
ISBN (electrònic)978-3-96110-322-5
ISBN (imprès)978-3-98554-018-1
DOIs
Estat de la publicacióPublicada - 7 de set. 2021

Sèrie de publicacions

NomOpen Slavic Linguistics
EditorLanguage Science Press
Volum4

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