Talk:Definiteness

Definiteness in Basque

It is debatable whether the Basque article -a really marks definiteness. I favour the position that it does not. Instead, -a is the default determiner, which is required to occupy the obligatory determiner position in most Basque noun phrases whenever no other determiner (or quantifier) occupies that position. This analysis accounts more economically for the fact now generally accepted in Basque linguistics that the article has a whole range of uses that are not semantically definite; it is also more coherent with the syntactic facts concerning obligatory determination in Basque noun phrases. Given that this article is about definiteness, that is somewhat unfortunate. I would therefore suggest choosing another language for this example in which the definiteness-marking value of the suffix is uncontroversial. How about a North Germanic language, for example? --A R King 16:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Definiteness in Japanese

Japanese arguably does not explicitly mark definiteness. The particle/clitic は /wä/ is a topic marker in Japanese's topic-comment argument structure. Many English translations of clauses that have the topical marker in the original Japanese might obscure this fact, though, as English, being a subject-centric language, uses its definiteness marker to mark a clause's syntactic subject as the semantic topic for pragmatic reasons. The nominative marker が /gä/ in Japanese is actually much closer to marking definiteness than は is, as it can imply a discrete subject when a preceding (or implied) question has been asked. In effect it can be used to emphasize a specific subject from multiple possibilities. Tae Kim's "Japanese Grammar Guide" (2010) goes into discussion of が and how it used on pages 28-29. Mattgoldstein (talk) 13:22, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Specificity

Looking up specificity results in a redirect to this article but specificity is a separate linguistic category from definiteness and is not handled in this article. I suggest that either a separate article on specificity be written or a section on specificity be added to this article. Specificity is not grammatically marked in English, but can be indicated by two different readings of the sentence I'm looking for a policeman. This can either mean that the speaker is looking for any policeman at all (non-specific: I'm looking for a policeman. Maybe you've seen one?) or a particular policeman (specific: I'm looking for a policeman. Maybe you've seen him). In either case, the indefinite article, a is used in English because the identity of the policeman is not presumed to be known by the listener. Definiteness is generally an indication of the listener's assumed knowledge of the identity of the referent whereas specificity indicates the speakers own knowledge of the identity of the referent. I would write the section/article myself but I am unable to find any good examples of this in languages at the moment although I have seen it in the past - if only I could remember where. 84.143.239.240 (talk) 01:27, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Specificity now has its own page.--Brett (talk) 01:33, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

External link

Will the following link be accepted: What Does "the" Even Mean?? תיל"ם (talk) 03:12, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

not likely Brett (talk) 15:03, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Japanese example

@Brett Could you elaborate on your reversion message? I'm confused as to why Japanese is given an example that simply says there's no definiteness. Is the choice of Japanese (instead of, say, Chinese) basically arbitrary here, simply to illustrate that definiteness marking is not required in all languages? (I'm presuming all languages have a semantic notion of definiteness—if that's not the case, and the point really is to say that Japanese has semantic but not syntactic definiteness, I think that should be stated explicitly for clarity.) BalinKingOfMoria (talk) 00:27, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't say there's no definiteness; it says definiteness isn't marked. For the distinction between semantic and grammaticalized definiteness, see Lyons, C. (1999). Definiteness. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511605789

So, yes, there's nothing special about Japanese (or any of the other languages). They're all illustrative. Feel free to add clarification. Brett (talk) 18:44, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying! Appreciate the reference, I'll take a look. BalinKingOfMoria (talk) 19:00, 11 June 2026 (UTC)