STRONG AND WEAK NOVELTY
Cleo A. Condoravdi · 2016
Inthischapter,Iwilldevelopananalysisofthefunctional readingwithintheframeworkofanoveltytheoryofindefiniteness. Iwillarguethatthefunctionalreadingariseswhenanindefiniteis evaluatedwithrespecttoafileentailingitsdescriptivecontent,in asensetobemadeprecise.Inordertocharacterizethedistinction betweenstandardindefinites,whichexcludethefunctionalreading, andbarepluralswhichallowit,Iwilldevelopamorefine-grained theoryofnovelty,specifiedintermsoftwoconditions:anoveltyof indexconditionandafamiliarityofdecsriptivecontentcondition. Formally,thedistinctionbetweenthetwotypesofindefiniteNP&s;s willbecharacterizedintermsofthetypesoffelicityconditionsthey areassociatedwith.StronglynovelNP&s;sareindefiniteNP&s;swhich areassociatedonlywithanoveltyconditionwithrespecttotheir index.WeaklynovelNP&s;sareindefiniteNP&s;swhichareassociated withanoveltyconditionwithrespecttotheirindexandafamiliarityconditionwithrespecttotheirdescriptivecontent.Although thedomainofindefinitesisnotuniform,wecanstillcharacterize theclassofindefiniteNP&s;sasthosewhichareassociatedatleast withanoveltyconditionwithrespecttotheirindex.Indefinites can,therefore,bedistinguishedfromdefinitesinaprincipledmanneralongthelinesofthenovelty-familiaritytheory.