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On the occurrences of anaphoric bare NPs in Japanese

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Published/Copyright: August 13, 2015

Abstract

It is known that bare NPs can be interpreted as an indefinite description or a definite description in Japanese. A question arises as to whether a bare NP in Japanese can always obtain an intended anaphoric definite reading from the previous context. The present work attempts to answer this question. More specifically, we will explore the occurrences and nonoccurrences of anaphoric definite bare NPs in terms of the Givenness Hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993). We will first discuss the advantages of adopting the Givenness Hierarchy to the studies of occurrences of bare NPs and show how the Givenness Hierarchy accounts for cases in which the use of a demonstrative determiner for anaphoric definite NPs is either optional or infelicitous. We will then examine apparent counterexamples for the Givenness Hierarchy, namely cases in which a bare NP cannot refer to an individual that is introduced in the previous context. We will argue that these apparent counterexamples are due to competing readings arising from various independent sources and demonstrative determiners are used to force intended anaphoric definite readings, as argued in Gundel (2010) and Gundel et al. (2012).

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tomoyuki Yoshida, Wako Tawa, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of this article. Needless to say, all shortcomings are mine.

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Published Online: 2015-8-13
Published in Print: 2015-9-1

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton

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