I

Studies in honourof

René DEROLEZ

Edited bv

A.M. Simon-Vandenbergen

ISBN 90-9001737-2

Uitgever - Publisher : Selljlinarie voor Engelse en Oud-Germaanse TaalkundeR.U.G.

Druk: vzw ICIWO, Gent.

@1987

dm uitgave mJ worden verveelvoudigd ,nlof openbaar gemaaktNiets uitdoor middel van druk, fotocopie , microfilm of op welke wijze ook zondervoorafgaande toestemming van de uitgever.

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HOWEXCLUSIVi IS INDEFINITEREFERENCE?

Definiteness and indefiniteness are elusive concepts, and theattempts at defining them precisely (which are abundant inthe linguistic literature)1 have never been completely satisfac­tory. Vet, I think that most linguists would accept the followingas good informal working definitions: (a) The use of a definitenoun phrase means that the speaker assumes that the hearercan know who or what he is talking about. This knowledge isavailable to him from the NP itself or from the previous dis­course, the situation of kpeaking, the hearer's general knowledgeof the world, or whatever. (b) The use of an indefinite Nt>meansthat the speaker assumes that the hearer does not have this know­l~dge. This idea of knorledge th~t is eithe~ available or absenthes at the bottorn of such theones as Chnstophersen's (1939)'familiarity theory' and IHawkins' (1978) 'locatability theory'.Though neither of these theories is without its problems (seeLyons (1980)) there does not seem to be any doubt that someunderlying notion of 'available knowIedge' is essential to thedescription of the mean~g of (in)definiteness.

According to some people there is a second element ofmeaning that is essential to this description, viz. the oppositionbetween inclusive and exclusive reference. This claim is expli­citly made by Hawkins (1978), where it is argued (a) that oneof the elements of meaning of the definite artiele is that thereference is to the total!ity· of the set of objects satisfying thereferring description, and (b) that it is inherent in the meaningof the indefinite artiele that there are other objects satisfyingthe referring description besides the one referred to. Claim (a)means that indefinite reference is always 'inclusive'; claim (b)means that indefinite r~ference is 'exclusive'. Neither claim isunfamiliar in the linguistic literature, although the terms usedare often different. The idea of inclusiveness is also found inVendler (1971 :124) (who notes that definite NPs imply "com­pleteness"), Rivero (19715 :34) (who speaks of "co-extensivenesswith a set"), Sterming (~978:176) (who argues for an "analysisof the definite artiele as la universal quantifier"), and many others

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(e.g. Clark & Marshall (1981), Heim (1982:12), etc.). The ideathat indefinite reference is essentiallyexclusive is also to be foundin Pope (1976:35) (who claims that the meaning of indefiniteNPs is "partitive") an~ in fact underlies two other claims whichhave been made an innumerable number of times in the linguisticliterature. The first is that "the basic conception underlyingthe use of the indefinite artiele is that of an individual unit takenmore or less at random out of a class of similar objects" (Meyer­Myklestadt 1967:3). The second is the claim (argued byChristophersen (1939:7lff) and many others) that the indefiniteartiele serves to mark a noun as a count noun. As noted by Thome(1982:481), "to indicate that something is countable is, of course,just to indicate that it is a member of a class."

The belief that d~finite reference and indefinite referenceare inclusive and exclusive, respectively, is thus firmly rootedin the linguistic litera~ure. Vet, I do not think that this beliefis correct, at least not in the form in which we find it in Hawkins(1978) and some other works. The purpose of this artiele is toargue this as far as the putatuve exclusiveness of indefinitereference is concerned. For lack of space it is not possible toconsider both exclusiveness and inclusiveness in a single paper.(See Declerck (1985) for a discussion of the inclusiveness claim).l

Hawkins (1978) argues that exclusiveness is an inherentpart of the meaning pf indefiniteness. According to him thespeaker using an indefinite NP performs two speech acts: "He(a) introduces a referJnt (or referents) to the hearer; and (b)refers to a proper subset, i.e. not-all, of the potential referentsin the referring expression." (p. 187). This view is based on obser­vations like the following:

(1)(a) (Fred bought a book from Heffer's.) He was dismayed tofind th at {a page was torn. }

some pages were tom.(Fred bought 8J book from Heffer's. ) He then went andspoke to an autlior about it.

(b)

In (l,a) 'a page' and fsome pages' can (and normally will) beinterpreted as belonging to the book mentioned in the previoussentence. However, 'an author" in (l,b) cannot be the authorof that book. The reason, according to Hawkins, is that theseindefinite NPs refer exclusively, i.e. logically presuppose th at

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there are other objects s~tiSfYingthe referring description besidesthe one(s) referred to. This is a11 right in (l,a), where 'a page'and 'some pages' are interpreted as belonging to a book which

Icontains other pages besides the one(s) in question. But, on theassumption that a book lias only one author, 'an author' in (l,b)cannot refer to the author of the book mentioned before, becauseit would then refer incl~sively instead of exclusively. The NP istherefore interpreted as Ireferring to a member of another set,viz. the set of authors in general. This interpretation is all rightbecause it is in keeping with the requirement that indefinitereference be exclusive. I

Examples like these look convincing, yet it is not difficultto find counterevidence: I

(2)(a) Bill wants to sell a book that someone gave him last year.(b) In my dream I sawa man with two heads and three arms.

Clearly, (2,a) does not I necessarily imply that there are otherbooks that were given to Bill, nor does (2,b) imply that (evenin my dream) there exists at least one ether man with two headsand three arms apart frbm the one I saw.2 Yet these are theexclusive interpretations' which, according to Hawkins' theory,the NPs should have. (Hawkins himself points out (on p. 224) thata restrictive modifier in Ithe N~ helps to define the relevant set.Thus, he claims, the sentence 'A man who is from the south.was nasty to Mary' "presupposes that there exist other men fromthe south, i.e. other objects satisfying the description of bothnoun and modifier" (p. 2~5).)

How can we account for the fact that the indefinite NPsin (l,a-b) invite an exclusive interpretation whereas those in(2,a-b) do not? Apparently, what is wrong with Hawkins' theoryis that the claim it mak~s is too strong. According to Hawkins,exclusiveness is an inherent part of the meaning of indefiniteness.More specifically , it is claimed to be a "logical presupposition",i.e. a condition which must be satisfied for a sentence to be judgedas true or false: "When no interpretation satisfying exclusivenessexists for indefinite descriptions, native speakers are unable toevaluate the truth or falsity of the sentence as a whole" (p. 190).Hawkins thus brings exclhsiveness on a par with existence, whichis logically presupposed by definite NPs. Consider:

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(3)(a) Have you ever ispoken to the President of Great Britain?(3)(b) Have you ever spoken to a present Queen of England ?

A sentence like (3,a) calnot be answered with 'yes' or 'no' becausethe logical presupposition of existence fails. According to Hawkinsthe same is true of (3,b), because the 'exclusiveness presupposi­tion' fails: in his opinion, both 'yes' and 'no' would be falseanswers because 'a present Queen of England presupposes thatthere is more than one present Queen of England. which is in­correct.

In my opinion, however, there is no logical presuppositionfailure in (3,b). Whereas one could not possibly reply 'yes' to(3,a), anyone who had ever spoken to the present Queen ofEngland would have t9 answer (3,b) affirmatively. In other words,granted that there is something wrong with (3,b), whatever thisis does not affect the question of truth or falsity. Exclusivenessis not a question of logical presuppositions.

As another illustration, imagine the following situation.A chemical engineer is carfylng out an experiment when suddenlya toxic gas is produced. He quickly leaves the room by its onlydoor and in so doing escapes being stupefied by the gas. Lateron, when relating this incident to his friends, he uses the followingsentence:

(4) Fortunately I was able to open a door and run away.

In Hawkins' theory th is sentence cannot be judged as either trueor false, because the exclusiveness presupposition fails: 'a door'suggests that there were other doors, whereas in fact there wasonly one. But, surely, this conclusion cannot be correct. If judgedon its truth value, (4) must certainly be classified as true. Thefact th at the speaker uses 'a door' instead of 'the door' maybe odd or misleading, but this certainly does not affect the truthvalue of the sentence. I

In my opinion, what is wrong with the use of 'a door' in (4)is that the speaker violates a conversational principle: he usesan expression which is not as informative as it might have been3and this runs counter to Grice's well-known Maxim of Quantity.In (4) this violation has no important consequences, since it doesnot in any way obstruct the interpretation of the sentence. Thequestion of how many doors there were is after all immaterial

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to the story that is being told. The situation is different, however,in exampleslike the fOllO~ing:

(5) (Mary and I went to a wedding on Saturday.) I was talkingto a bride about it afterwards.

(Hawkins 1978:176)

A sentence like this yields a somewhat odd interpretationbecause it is impossible rbI relate the NP 'a bride' to the weddingmentioned before. If the speaker had used 'the bride', then thehearer would have known that the bride referred to was the brideof the wedding just referred to. But the use of 'a bride' suggeststhat there is no information available in the context to make itpossible for the hearer tol know what bride is being talked about.This sugge.stion is deCeiVirg unless the bride referred to is indeed abride different from the one involved in the wedding mentionedbefore. The hearer, who trusts that the speaker is not deceivinghim, will therefore conclude that this is the only possible inter-pretation. I

The principle that emerges from this is that the speakershould not use an indefinite NP if the conditions for using adefinite one are satisfied. If the hearer has the necessary infor­mation to infer what pefson or object is being referred to, thenthe speaker should use a Idefinite NP.4 Since a definite NP is moreinformative than an indefinite one, this is entirely in keeping withGrice 's Maxim of Quanbty. The obligation to use a definiteNP is especially stringe11jt when the information which enablesthe hearer to identify thelreferentts) uniquely is explicitly given inthe context (as in (5». If this is not the case (as in (4», the effectof violating the rule may ~e much weaker.

The above principle [offers a satisfactory explanation for theobservations made in co1nnection with (l,a-b) and (5), and forother examples which Hawkins adduces in support .of his claim,such as the following: I

(6)(a) (There was a rope lying on the ground.)?Billends and tied a k~ot in the rope.

(b) Billlost { $o~e fingers } in the war.?some legs

(c) They brought intf the courtroom thej*some arms of hismurdered daughter. (p.181)

took some(p. 179)(p.180)

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Hawkins (1978:184) concludes from these examples that "thereferents of 'some' +: plural noun are (...) not locatable when thereare only two objects in question". He interprets this as evidencefor his theory th at ihdefinite reference is basically exclusive.However, this (strong) claim does not appear to be justified,for our (much weaker) principle can easily account for theobservations. The sets referred to in (G.a-c) (i.e. the setofendsof a rope, the set of I someone's legs and the set of someone'sarms) are such that anybody knows that they contain only twoobjects. The use of a blural NP ('endsjlegsjarms') can then onlymean that the reference is to the whole set, and since this set isuniquely defined by the context (i.e. the ends are those of therope just referred to, the legs are Bill's own, etc.), a definitedescription has to be used.

Examples like (6, a-c) can thus be accounted for withoutany reference to the idea of exclusiveness. The fact that exclu­siveness is not the key concept that we need to account for theuse of indefinite NPs is also clear from the fact that 'some' is onlyexcluded if the hearer ~sassumed to know that a particular set oftwo objects is being referred to. If this is not the case, the speakercan easily refer to a set of two objects by means of 'some'. Forexample, if the speaker saw two girls in the street, he can informthe hearer of this fact 1Ymeans of the sentence

(7) 1saw .{some } girls in the street.a couple of

This means that indefinite reference is inappropriate when thespeaker knows that the hearer can identify the objects uniquely,but not necessarily when the reference fails to be exclusive. (In(7) the reference is inclusive rather than exclusive.)

Further evidence for the claim that exclusiveness is nomore than a conversational implicature is provided by the obser­vation th at the idea of exclusiveness can be dismissed by thecontext:

(8)(a) Jim's death , is a hard blow to both of us. You have lostyour husband and I have lost a very good friend. Infact, he was the only good friend I had.

(b) I have never heard a better suggestion.(c) A crime like thi« has never been committed before.

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In examples like these, ~he context or the sentence itself makesclear that there is only one object satisfying the referring expres­sion. This is in keeping with our theory, .since (as is well-known)conversational implicatures can be cancelled out by the context,whereas logical entailments and presuppositions cannot.

The idea of exclusiveness is also cancelled out when the 'NPcontains a modifier that rinders the reference unique:

(9) So you were at Eton, were you? Then you are certain toknow a chap called Bill Snoop. 5

IIn some cases there is no exclusiveness because the context

makes clear that the speaker does not know if the object refer­red to is or is not unique:1

(10)(a) They say that a creature from another planet has landedin Siberia.

(b) The circus includes a woman that uieighs 175 hilos andcan lift weights up to 200 kilogrammes.

(c) We're looking for a solution to th isproblem.

Consider also the following sentence:

(11) I looked at the f:0up and noticed that a boy with redhair and shabby ciathee was smiling at me.

In this example the referent of the indefinite NP is 'locatable'in the sense that he must clearly belong to the group referred to inthe head clause. The reference need not be exclusive. It maybe the case that the group incIuded several boys answering thedescription, but the sentence can also be used if there was onlyone. Even in the latter base the speaker will not normally use adefinite NP, unless the boy in question has already beenmentioned or is identifiable to the hearer in some other waywhich is not clear when[ the sentence is used in isolation. If th isis not the case, the conditions for using a definite NP are notsatisfied and an indefinite NP is used. An exclusive interpretationis th en possible but in fabt not very probable in the given context.The implicature is therefore unlikely to arise. ,

Examples like (8)-(11) clearly refute Hawkins' claim that"it is necessary, when us~ngan indefinite description, for speaker

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Iand hearer to share the belief that there do exist others, andthat the reference be Ito a proper subset only" (p. 200). Thealternative theory that I have argued makes a much weaker claim:it says that eXclusiveress is conversationally implicated by in­definite NPs unie ss it is ruled out or rendered unlikely by thecontext, the situation of speaking or another pragmatic factor.The reason behind thts implicature is the Maxim of Quantity,according to which thelspeaker should make his utterance as infor­mative as required. Thii means that a cooperative speaker must usea definite NP rather tfan an indefinite one if the conditions fordefinite reference are satisfied, i.e. if he can assume that thehearer has the necessary knowledge (or is given the necessaryinformation, to ten w~iCh object or set is being referred to. Now,this condition is normally satisfied when the set of objects th atthe speaker is referririg to makes up the entire set of objectssatisfying the referring expression. Consider, for example, thefollowing sentence: I

{t?e } books on the table.some

I

In this example the referring expression itself contains the infor­mation which can make the referent set identifiable: if the speakerwants to have all the Ibooks on the table, then the set of booksthat he is referring to coincides with the set of books that isdefined by the referribg expression 'books on the table'. In thatcase the speaker knows that the hearer has the necessary infor­mation to identify the referent set (since this information is givenby the referring expression itself) and he therefore has to use

Ithe definite article. If he does not do this, but uses 'some' instead,then the hearer has a right to conclude that (unless the speakeris deceiving him) the I reference cannot be to the set of bookssatisfying the descriptipn 'books on the table' as such, hence thatthe reference can only be to a subset of these. He thus arrivesat an exclusive interpretation, not because this interpretation isinherent in the meaning of the indefinite NP itself, but becausethis interpretation is ~he only possible ~x?lanation of the factthat the speaker does not make the NP definite:

I

I

(12) Give me

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CONCLUSION

Exclusiveness is not logically presupposed by the use of an inde­finite NP but follows aE an implicature from Grice's pragmaticprinciples (more specif~cally, from the Maxim of Quantity).Although I have referre~ to the implicature in question as a con­versational one, I reall~ leave open the question of whetherthe implicature is a conversational one or a conventional one.(It seems to me that thè system is sufficiently conventionalizedfor us to be able to sdeak of a conventional implicature, butthis issue is not really re levant to the conclusion arrived at in thispaper.)

NOTES

1The claim that NPs inv01vtng the definite artic1e a1ways refer inclusivelyis not tenable either. Hawkins (1978: 159) points out that 'the sand' in (i)can only be interpreted as '!tU the sand' and that the speaker of (i) wouldtherefore not be satisfied if otily some of the sand were moved:

I .(i) I must ask you to move the sand from my gateway.

However, 'the sand' is not '+"lY interpreted as ',llthe sand' in (dj,

(ti) Imust ask you not to sleepjsitjspitjurinate on the sand.

Examples like these show that definiteness is not a sufficient conditionfor an inclusive interpretatio+ There is also evidence that it is not a necessarycondition either. For more retails and an alternative theory, see Declerck( 1985).2Hawkins (1978:225) himself draws attention to a sentence 1ike(i) in whichthe complex NP also fails to tggest exclusiveness:

(i) (What's wrong with Mal)'I?)Oh, a man she went out with last night wasnasty to her.

Hawkins attempts to solve the problem by claiming that (i) is actually derivedfrom (ti): l(ti) S!J.ewent out with a m n last night, and he (who) was nasty to her.

However, this solution (apar~. from being extr~mely ad hoc) does not see~to work for examples 1ike(2,a-b).3The Maxim of Quantity stiJulates that the speaker should make his con tri-

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bution as informative as required for the current purposes of the exchange.(Grice 1975 :45)4Yiolation of this principle of course does not result in ungrammaticality.The speaker may violate it intentionally in order to mislead the hearer orwithhold information. I

51 borrow this example from Hawkins (1978:193), who admits that theuseof 'a' (and the impossibility ofusing 'the') presents a problem for his theory.Hawkins attempts to explain this problem away (pp. 193-195), but I do notconsider his explanation (which is too long to repeat here) as very satisfac­tory.

REFERENCES'

CHRISTOPHERSEN, P. (1939): The Articles: A Study of their Theoryand Use in English, Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

CLARK, H. & MARSHALL, C. (1981): Definite Reference and MutualKnowiedge. In: Elements of Discourse Understanding; eds. A. Joshi,B. Webber and L SagoCambridge: Cambridge University Press.

DECLERCK, R. (1985): I)efiniteness and Inclusive Reference. MS (to appearin Journal of Literary Semantics)

GRICE, H.P. (1975): Logic and Conversation. In: Syntax and Semantics 3:Speech Acts, eds. P. Cole and J.L. Morgan. New Vork: AcademiePress.

HAWKINS, J. (1978): Definiteness and Indefiniteness . London: CroomHelm.

HEIM, LR. (1982): The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases.Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts.

LYONS, C.G. (1980): The Meaning of the English Definite Article. In:The Semantics of Determiners, ed. J. Van der Auwera. London: CroomHelm.

MEYER-MYKLESTADT,~. (1967): An Advanced English Grammar forStudents and Teachers. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

POPE, E. (1976): Questions and Answers in English . The Hague: Mouton.RIYERO, M.-L. (1975): Referential Properties of Spanish Noun Phrases.

Language 51 :3248.STENNING, K. (1978): Ànaphora as an Approach to Semantics. In: Lin­

gutstic Theory and Psychalagical Reality , eds. M. Halle, J. Bresnan andG.A. Miller. Cambridge, Mass.: M.LT. Press.

THORNE, lP. (1982): A Note on the Indefinite Article. In: LanguageForm and Linguistic I Variation: Papers Dedicated to Angus Me Intosh,ed. J. Anderson. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

YENDLER, Z. (1981): Singular Terms. In: Semantics: An InterdisciplinaryReader in Philosophy, Linguistics and Psych ology , eds. D. Steinbergand L. Jakobovits. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press.

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