How weak and how definite are Weak Definites?
Florian Schwarz · Linguistik aktuell · 2014
This paper explores the potential for a unified analysis of Weak Definites and regular definites. I first consider and argue against assimilating Weak Definites to co-varying interpretations of regular definites via general mechanisms. Next, I present a new proposal for analyzing Weak Definites, which sees them as regular definites occurring in verb phrases that denote kinds of events. This has the promise of allowing us to maintain a unified analysis of definites in terms of uniqueness while at the same time capturing the special properties of Weak Definites.