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Re: Unmarked definiteness

From:Mark P. Line <mark@...>
Date:Tuesday, August 24, 2004, 22:11
Andreas Johansson said:
> Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>: >> >> I'd expect the referents of most NP's to be recoverable from >> context (i.e. to be definite). So it wouldn't surprise me to find a >> natlang in which only NP's whose referents are *not* so recoverable >> (i.e. are indefinite) are marked. > > That's true, but I was thinking from a more typological angle; my > impression is > that the definite is usually at least as marked as the indefinite. Is this > true?
I suspect that Christopher Lyons covers what is known about that in his book, but I don't have access to a copy. -- Mark