Definiteness and specificity in Mavea

Guerin, Valerie (2007) Definiteness and specificity in Mavea. Oceanic Linguistics, 46 (2). pp. 538-553.

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Abstract

Specificity and definiteness are universal semantic categories, but not all languages express these categories morphologically. In this paper, I present data from Mavea, a language spoken in northern Vanuatu, which show morphological expressions of these two semantic categories. I argue that in Mavea, the article le deontes specificity, aite encodes indefiniteness, te ... aite refers to indefinite nonspecific expressions, while the lack of an article expresses definiteness.


Item ID:	28178
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1527-9421
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date Deposited:	23 Jul 2013 22:46
FoR Codes:	20 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 2004 Linguistics > 200408 Linguistic Structures (incl Grammar, Phonology, Lexicon, Semantics) @ 100%
SEO Codes:	97 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 970120 Expanding Knowledge in Language, Communication and Culture @ 100%
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