Natural Syntax: The English indefinite article

The indefinite article – Indefinite ? – Article ?

Perlmutter (1970) argued that the indefinite article is categorically different from the definite article and proposed that it is a clitic version of the numeral "one". But there are, as Perlmutter himself pointed out, instances of "a" as well as of "one" that don't seem to have the semantics of the numeral. Hence a divorce of "a" (and of "one") from "numeral"-hood is called for. Furthermore, t...

5 - 1 - 2012 The indefinite article – Indefinite ? – Article ?

Perlmutter (1970) argued that the indefinite article is categorically different from the definite article and proposed that it is a clitic version of the numeral "one". But there are, as Perlmutter himself pointed out, instances of "a" as well as of "one" that don't seem to have the semantics of the numeral. Hence a divorce of "a" (and of "one") from "numeral"-hood is called for. Furthermore, t...

On the Acquisition of the Indefinite Article

The present article argues that the idea of morphology-driven syntax carries over to first-language acquisition. Morphology encodes properties of functional categories, i.e. particular features and feature values that must be set according to the target (adult) language during the acquisition process. In agreement with previous findings concerning the acquisition of functional categories in the...

English some as an epistemic indefinite

English article insertion

For an 8,300-word sample of English text we have found that it is possible to provide at least an acceptable article for more than 90 per cent of the noun occurrences at a "cost" of providing a dual article for half of the occurrences. This can be achieved by making use of the following relatively simple criteria for article selection: (1) prior classification of nouns according to the articles...