Conflicts in Interpretation - Petra Hendriks
Nominals with and without an article: distribution, interpretation and variation
Conflicts in Interpretation - Petra Hendriks
Petra Hendriks [+]
University of Groningen
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Petra Hendriks is a Professor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Her publications include Breinmakers & Breinbrekers (with Niels Taatgen and Tjeerd Andringa, 1997) and Optimal Communication (with Helen de Hoop and Reinhard Blutner, 2006).
Irene Kramer
Henriette de Swart [+]
University of Utrecht
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Prof. dr. Henriette de Swart is professor of French linguistics and semantics. She is also affiliated to the cognitive artificial intelligence program. Her research focuses on cross-linguistic semantics, especially in the area of nominals, tense and aspect, negation.
Description
This chapter focuses on the distribution and interpretation of bare nominal in a range of languages. It is argued that an OT typology is responsible for the differences in distribution. The semantics is directly recoverable from the syntax, under the assumption of a small set of correspondence rules between form and meaning. Thus, the view, that setting up referents in conversational space and referring to them are universally available cognitive operations, is maintained.