A survey on the signs of definiteness in Persian language nouns

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Authors

1 PhD Student of Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

2 Professor of Linguistics, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Language signs including definite and indefinite signs, can be interpreted divergently in different linguistic contexts. The survey is aiming to find whether a noun is taken as definite or indefinite merely due to some added elements and signs or not. It is done based on the theoretical foundations of “Definiteness” by Christopher Lyons (1999). Taking the same approach, the formal signs introduced by the previous works on the subject, are taken into account as the immediate formal coding definite/ indefinite nouns, found in “Ham-Bam” corpus (2022). In following, the cases are analyzed and described semantically through making some comparisons with artificial utterances, considering the discourse and aiming to pragmatics. As the conclusion, definiteness isn`t an absolute concept but a comparative one which defines some nouns as more or less definite in contrast to their equivalents within the same co-text. Generic nouns, referring to a mental referent, which is common as a prototype among the speakers of a language in isolation, must be considered in a discoursal co-text in aspect of meeting the final pragmatical aim, per case.

Keywords

Language and Linguistics
Volume 19, Issue 38
September 2024

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