The role of context (and its limits) in the interpretation of definite noun phrases
Taking Hawkins’ (1991) theory of definiteness as its point of departure, this paper has two main
aims. First, to analyse the role of context in the interpretation of definite NPs. Second, to
explore the limits of what context can achieve in this domain with regard to a) presupposition
failure and accommodation, and b) one category of so-called ‘weak definites’.
Hawkins (1991: 414) summarizes his theory as in (1). The advantage of this approach is that
it unifies the evident insights of both familiarity/identifiability and uniqueness theories of
definiteness. However, Hawkins nowhere gives a precise definition of how ‘P-sets’ are
constituted. I propose that Hawkins’ insight is better formulated in the more consistently
relevance-theoretic terms of (2) (cf. Sperber and Wilson 1995, Blakemore 2002), and that {P}
be explicitly characterized as a proper subset of the set of assumptions and concepts mutually
manifest [MM] to speaker and hearer at the moment of a given utterance, such that the members
of this subset have some MM property in common. On this characterization there are
indefinitely many P-sets potentially accessible at a given time, but the task of the interlocutors is
to converge on the most relevant one (or two sufficiently similar) such that it contains a unique
referent fitting the descriptive content of the NP (cf. Wilson 1992: 179).
The second part of the paper addresses two commonly cited difficulties for the type of
theory in (1)–(2). The first of these is where a speaker seems to felicitously utter a sentence
containing a definite NP for which the hearer cannot locate an appropriate P-set, as is standard
in an utterance of (3). I argue that, rather than being a special property of definites, this is
simply a manifestation of the wider phenomenon of presupposition failure with accommodation,
and acceptability in this case is determined by the hearer’s preparedness to adjust the context so
that a relevant P-set becomes MM. Where a speaker judges that the hearer will accommodate,
this can be exploited for rhetorical effect, as in (3), which prompts the implicature that the news
in question is so noteworthy that the hearer really ought to be familiar with it. I argue that where
an utterance such as (3) is not accommodated in this way, it cannot be felicitous.
The second objection relates to anomalous examples such as (4), whose meaning is not
captured by (1)–(2). In inalienable possessive NPs like this, definite marking of the head is
grammatical (and indefinite marking odd) even where its referent is necessarily non-unique:
e.g., every river necessarily has two banks, and reference in (4) is not to one of these in
particular. This is a special property of relational nouns like bank: alienable possessive NPs, as
in (5), are only felicitous given an MM P-set ensuring uniqueness. Accommodation can provide
the necessary P-set, but not an interpretation of John’s plate that is not P-set-unique. P-set
uniqueness is thus a necessary property of semantic definiteness and anomalous examples like
(5) cannot be semantically definite, despite their morphosyntax. This mismatch can then be
explained as the diachronic outcome of a clash between the semantics of indefinite marking and
the semantics of relational nouns. The arbitrary tokening force of the former presupposes the
independence of the category invoked by the noun it modifies. But the category invoked by a
relational noun is, by definition, dependent, as illustrated in (6). This clash means that when a
language develops obligatory definiteness marking, the definite article necessarily becomes the
default marker of relational nouns, even in cases like (4), where (1)–(2) do not apply.
(1) The conventionally implicates that there is some subset of entities, {P}, in the universe of
discourse which is MM to speaker and hearer on-line and within which definite referents
exist and are unique.
(2) The [+definite] status of a definite NP encodes a procedure indicating to the hearer that the
referent of that NP is unique within some MM subset of assumptions and concepts, {P}.
(3) Have you heard the news?!
(4) He came to the bank of a river.
(5) I stole John’s plate.
(6) ??I then encountered a side, which turned out to be the side of a mountain.
References: Blakemore, D. 2002. Relevance and Linguistic Meaning. Cambridge: CUP.
Hawkins, J. (1991) ‘On (in)definite articles: implicatures and (un)grammaticality prediction’.
JoL 27, 405-442. Sperber, D. & D. Wilson. 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition.
Oxford: Blackwell. Wilson, D. (1992). ‘Reference and relevance’. UCL Working Papers in
Linguistics 4, 167-191.