Abstract
The expression of indefiniteness and definiteness presents great cross-linguistic diversity, which makes the task of establishing semantic/pragmatic framework that generalizes over all different definiteness patterns an important challenge for semantic theory. In this chapter, we focus on the expression of definiteness in A’ingae, an underdocumented and endangered language isolate of Amazonian Ecuador and Colombia. The overall definiteness pattern of the language is: bare noun phrases can be used in all of indefinite, unique, and anaphoric definite noun phrases, while a dedicated anaphoric marker of A’ingae, tsa, can only be used in anaphoric definites. This lack of complementarity between the unique and anaphoric forms in A’ingae challenges previously proposed frameworks that rely on pragmatic competition and therefore predict a strict division between the unique and anaphoric forms in other languages. We propose that an alternative semantic-based framework, not pragmatic-based, is necessary to synchronically capture different definiteness patterns cross-linguistically.
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Notes
- 1.
In addition to the Leipzig conventions, the following glossing abbreviations are used: add “additive,” ana “anaphoric,” and “andative,” attr “attributive,” cmp “comparative,” ct “contrastive topic,” ds “different subject,” frst “frustrative,” honr “honorific,” iter “iterative,” pej “pejorative,” plh “human plural,” pls “plural subject,” prop “property,” prsp “prospective,” rep “reportative,” sbrd “subordinator,” ss “same subject,” and ver “veridical.”
- 2.
In this chapter, we will use the term “DP” to refer to maximal nominal expressions, since they can include a determiner. We leave to future work the precise syntactic analysis on the difference between “NP” and “DP.”
- 3.
Many other works have investigated propositional anaphora more in depth, such as discussions on English “that” Snider (2017) and citations therein.
- 4.
Jenks does point out one exception to the generalization of Index!, part-whole bridging cases, because the prior mention of an argument of the noun licenses the anaphoric form. See Jenks (2018) for detailed discussion.
- 5.
An alternative possible analysis raised by Andrés Saab would be to analyze pronominal tsa as involving nominal ellipsis. However, we are not aware of any specific evidence that suggests that such examples do involve ellipsis, and more generally, the existence of demonstrative-like elements with pronominal and adnominal uses is cross-linguistically common and not necessarily attributed to ellipsis generally. Finally, it is somewhat unclear whether/how an elliptical analysis would impact Ahn (2019)’s predictions.
- 6.
The plural forms tise’pa and tsendekhû appear to be morphological complex historically. In the case of tise’pa, it appears to consist of the singular tise plus the associative plural suffix -pa. However, it does not seem that this composition produces the correct synchronic meaning. For tsendekhû, Zheng (2022) argues that it historically consists of the singular tise plus the human/animate plural suffix -ndekhû. The reduced phonological form here suggests, however, that it is lexicalized synchronically as well.
- 7.
One crucial difference between Salish determiner system with the A’ingae one is that A’ingae has an additional indefinite marker, fae, that is only felicitous in indefinite uses. In order to capture the more limited distribution of fae, then, we would need to posit that unlike bare nouns, it has a lexically specified constraint of anti-uniqueness and anti-familiarity. We leave it to future work to flesh out such an account in detail, but note here that regardless of the approach to definiteness, this appears necessary since the competing overt form, tsa, only has anaphoric uses, and therefore, reasoning based on its non-use would derive too weak of an anti-presupposition.
- 8.
Though to reiterate, we have also found two important differences between tsa and the other such markers. First, tsa is never felicitous in bridging uses regardless of the specific bridging relation, whereas previously described anaphoric forms are often usable in a subset of bridging environments. Second, tsa lacks the deictic/exophoric uses that are possible with many similar forms (e.g., Jenks (2018) work on Mandarin).
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Acknowledgements
First of all, our heartfelt thanks to the A’i who have welcomed us into their community and shared their language with us. Thanks especially to our A’ingae-speaking consultants—Shen Aguinda, Hugo Lucitante, and Raúl Quieta—who have graciously spent their time thinking carefully about the data and ideas discussed here. We also gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF DEL/DLI #BCS-1911348/1911428 “Collaborative Research: Perspective Taking and Reported Speech in an Evidentially Rich Language” to Scott AnderBois and Wilson Silva. Finally, thanks to Carol-Rose Little, Peter Jenks, and audiences at Brown and WSCLA 25 and of course to the editors of this volume, Andrés Saab and Cilene Rodrigues.
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Zheng, H., AnderBois, S. (2023). Definiteness in A’ingae and Its Implications for Pragmatic Competition. In: Rodrigues, C., Saab, A. (eds) Formal Approaches to Languages of South America. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22344-0_13
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