Danon, Gabi. 2010. The definiteness feature at the syntax-semantics interface. In Anna Kibort & Greville G. Corbett (eds.), Features: Perspectives on a Key Notion in Linguistics, 143–165. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abstract⌗

In some languages, such as Hebrew, definiteness is encoded as a morphosyntactic feature that not only contributes to the semantics but also plays a role in syntactic operations. In other languages, there is no evidence that definiteness as a feature is available to the syntactic component. In this paper I argue that differences in the range of interpretations of complex genitive constructions in Hebrew versus other languages show that there are two different strategies for constructing the meaning of complex nominals: one that relies on sharing a morphosyntactic definiteness feature (which is possible only in languages that have such a feature), and one that does not. Furthermore, it is argued that morphosyntactic definiteness in Hebrew is not a bivalent feature with two possible values, but a monovalent feature whose presence alternates with lack of specification, which accounts for various asymmetries between definiteness and indefiniteness.

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