Re: Probability of Article Replacement?
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, February 26, 2003, 21:08 |
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John Cowan wrote:
> An indefinite topic would be a contradiction in terms.
>
I think so too, but how about--
(def.) "As for the elephant (we were discussing), it has a very small trunk"
vs.
(indef?) "As for elephants, they have trunks"-- though perhaps generic
statements are a sub-class of definite, since this could be paraphrased "As
for the elephant (in general), it has a trunk", so that "generic" = "the
definite/defined class of all known examples of X"???
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