Definite
In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases (NPs), distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical definite NP picks out a unique, familiar, specific referent.
There is considerable variation in the expression of definiteness across languages, and some languages such as Japanese do not generally mark it. In others, such as English, it is usually marked by the selection of determiner. In still other languages, such as Danish, definiteness is marked morphologically.The theoretical distinction between grammatical definiteness and cognitive identifiability has the advantage of enabling us to distinguish between a discrete (grammatical) and a non-discrete (cognitive) category.[p. 84]
Similar Artists