Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Definiteness is typically said to have a number of interrelated traits, 
viz., familiarity and identifiability, uniqueness and inclusiveness, and 
identifiability (see Lyons 1999: 1-17).

Definite articles, I take it, are morphemes whose prototypical function 
is to characterise the referent of a noun phrase as being something 
which the speaker assumes is known to the addressee (previous mention, 
general knowledge, contextual inference, etc.).

Lyons, Christopher. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge Textbooks in 
Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Regards,
David Kummerow.



-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re:[b-hebrew] David's article
From: Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>
To: David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
Date: 20/06/2007 9:53 AM

> David,
>
> Would you please explain to us what you precisely mean by "definite".
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University