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In:Language Description Informed by Theory
Edited by Rob Pensalfini, Myfany Turpin and Diana Guillemin
[Studies in Language Companion Series 147] 2014
► pp. 193–216

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Marking Definiteness or Specificity, not necessarily both

Evidence of a principle of economy from Mauritian Creole

Published online: 28 January 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.147.09gui
Definiteness and Specificity are assumed to be universal semantic categories, but they are not marked in all languages. Languages with only two articles mark either Definiteness or Specificity, not both (Ionin 2003). I apply Chomsky’s theory of Derivation by Phase (2001a, 2001b) to the analysis of the specificity marker la in Mauritian Creole to argue that this morpheme must surface as a “last resort” to license the null definite article in some syntactic environments. Building on Chierchia’s (1998) Nominal Mapping Parameter – according to which nouns vary with respect to the features “argumental” or “predicative” – I propose that languages whose nouns are argumental lack a definite article and mark the specific vs. non-specific contrast. Languages whose nouns are predicative require an overt definite article and mark the definite vs. indefinite contrast.
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Guillemin, Diana
2015. Of nouns, and kinds, and properties, and why one D is null or not. Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique 60:3 ► pp. 259 ff. DOI logo
Guillemin, Diana
2025. Evidence of topic-prominence in Mauritian Creole. In New Perspectives on Mauritian Creole and Reunion Creole [Contact Language Library, 61], ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo

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