The Semantics of Determiners (RLE Linguistics B: Grammar)

This book is a collection of linguistic and philosophical papers dealing with the semantic problems of determiners. The language under investigation is mostly English, although a few papers deal with French and German, and, to a lesser extent, with Dutch, Polish, Russian and Hebrew. The majority of the contributions focus on the semantics of the definite and indefinite articles, leading into discussions of anaphoricness, specificness, opacity and transparency, referentiality and attributiveness and genericness. The relation of the determiners to other parts of grammar, in particular relativisation and predication, is also investigated. Some attention is also given to quantifiers. In the spirit of pluralism, there is no single paradigm unifying all the papers, rather, the volume reflects elements of the Extended Standard Theory, Generative Semantics, Montague Grammar, (Gricean) Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory.

Johan Van Der Auwera

1. Any as Universal or Existential? Alice Davison 2. On Surface Definite Articles in English John A. Hawkins 3. Coreference and Interreference in Anaphoric Relations: Grammatical Semantics or Pragmatics? Theo Janssen 4. The Meaning of the English Definite Article Christopher G. Lyons 5. Demonstrations and the I-sayer Herman Parret 6. Definite and Indefinite Generics Frank Platteau 7. Determination with and without Articles Victor Raskin 8. Determiners and the Syntax of Pronominals, Relativisation and Modifier-shift Bob Rigter 9. Opacity and Transparency: A Pragmatic View Sjef Schoorl 10. Linguistic Considerations on Reference Pierre Swiggers 11. Existential Presuppositions and the Choice of Head NP Determiner in English Restrictive Relative Clauses Elzbieta Tabakowska 12. Indefinites, Exemplars and Kinds Willy Van Langendonck