Definiteness

In English, definiteness is usually marked by the selection of determiner. Certain determiners, such as a, an, many, and some, along with numbers (e.g., four items), typically mark an NP as indefinite. Others, including the, that, and genitive NPs (e.g., my brother) typically mark the NP as definite.[3]

A number of tests have been proposed to distinguish definite from indefinite NPs. "Each has a foundation in intuition, as well as some degree of grammatical effect. However, it is not clear that any of them corresponds cleanly to formal categories."[1]

1. If an NP can be put into an existential clause such as there is NP at the door (e.g., there are two wolves at the door), it is likely indefinite.[5]
2. "The concept of identifiability expressed by the definite article is best understood in terms of pre-empting a question with which?"[3]

• In Basque, definiteness is marked by a phrasal clitic.[6] (p. 76) emakume ("woman"), emakume-a (woman-ART: "the woman"), emakume ederr-a (woman beautiful-ART: "the beautiful woman"); Romanian: om ("man"), om-ul (man-ART: "the man"), om-ul bun (man-ART good: "the good man") or bun-ul om (good-ART man: "the good man")
• In Albanian definiteness is marked by a noun affix.[6] (p. 121) djalë ("boy"); djal-i (djal-ART: "the boy"); djal-i i madh (djal-ART i madh: "the elder son"); vajzë ("girl"); vajz-a (vajz-ART: "the girl"); vajz-a e bukur (vajz-ART e bukur: "the pretty girl")
• In Arabic definiteness is marked by a prefix on both noun and adjective.[6] (p. 91) الكتاب الكبير‎ (al-kitāb al-kabīr) with two instances of al- (DEF-book-DEF-big, literally, "the book the big")
• in Hungarian definiteness is marked by distinct verbal forms.[6] (p. 86) olvasok egy könyvet (read-1sg.pres.INDEF a book-ACC.sg: "I read a book") versus olvasom a könyvet (read-1sg.pres.DEF the book-ACC.sg: "I read the book")
• No marking. The Japanese 私は本を持っている (watashi wa hon o motteiru "I have a/the book") is ambiguous between definite and indefinite readings.[2]

Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Semitic, and auxiliary languages generally have a definite article, often preposed but in some cases postposed. Many other languages do not. Some examples are Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, and modern Slavic languages except Bulgarian and Macedonian. When necessary, languages of this kind may indicate definiteness by other means such as demonstratives.[6]

It is common for definiteness to interact with the marking of case in certain syntactic contexts. In many languages, a direct object receives distinctive marking only if it is definite. For example, in Turkish, the direct object in the sentence adamı gördüm (meaning "I saw the man") is marked with the suffix -ı (indicating definiteness)[6] (p. 204). The absence of the suffix on a direct object in Turkish means that it is indefinite and, in the absence of the indefinite article bir, no longer explicitly singular: adam gördüm ("I saw a man/I saw men"), .

In Serbo-Croatian, in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian, and, to a lesser extent in Slovene, definiteness can be expressed morphologically on prenominal adjectives.[7] The short form of the adjective is interpreted as indefinite, while the long form is definite or specific:

• short (indefinite): Serbo-Croatian nov grad "a new city"; Lithuanian balta knyga "a white book"
• long (definite): novi grad "the new city, a certain new city"; baltoji knyga "the white book, a certain white book"

In some languages, the definiteness of the object affects the transitivity of the verb. In the absence of peculiar specificity marking, it also tends to affect the telicity of mono-occasional predications.

In some Scandinavian languages, such as Swedish, definite nouns inflect with a dedicated set of suffixes. This is known in Swedish as the grammatical category of Species.