TWO LEVELS FOR DEFINITENESS

Roberto Zamparelli, Caroline Heycock, Lisa L. Cheng

Abstract:

Recent research on definiteness has shown that languages can distinguish between an anaphoric
and a uniqueness-based notion of definiteness. In this paper we will map the anaphoric/unique distinction to another well-known semantic
distinction, that between denoting individuals or singleton/maximal properties. This choice will in
turn be mapped onto two distinct syntactic levels, a s(trong)DP and a w(eak)DP projection, whose
heads may be filled or empty. If the head is empty, we propose that the projection can still be
semantically active if material of the appropriate type moves to its Head or Specifier, licensing the
layer and making it visible for interpretation.