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<Paper uid="C90-2046">
  <Title>Tenets for an Interlinguai Representation of Definite NPs</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="266" end_page="266" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3. Interlingual representation
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> of definiteness Definiteness is a means to satisfy coherence requirements. Definite NPs have a scope just like quantifiers and they may be involved in scope ambiguities as Russell suggested (MacCawley p.178). The most reliable test to decide about the definiteness of an NP is to use Peterson's (1979) test of thereinsertion. There insertion requires that the existential quantifier be immediately above the clause into which there is to be inserted. If an existential context is possible then there is no definiteness.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> 18. there are two men in the garden *there are the two men in the garden (no possibility of there) Definiteness in an extensional model it is a function from properties into sets of properties.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> NPs in the IL representation used in MT are flat tree structures with decorations containing sets of attribute-value pairs.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> These attributes were sketched above.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Feature configurations are equivalent to well formed formulas after lambda conversion, so that this approach can be used in a NL understanding system as well.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Below a rough outline of a PSR for  * (i) if tense = present and aspect = habitual and NO is plural then the quantification is distributional; if the tense is present but NO is singular then the quantification of the det is collective * (ii) if the determiner type is possessive or demonstrative, or the NP contains genitives, relative clauses, etc..the NP is definite * (iii) this feature keeps track for predicative constructions like: 19. he works as a teacher vs. trabaja como 0 maestro The final value for definiteness and quantification is the result of the above mentioned calculus that is percolated to the NP nodes.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="3" start_page="266" end_page="266" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4. Generators for definiteness
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> It is straightforward to show that for any definiteness configuration there is a determiner assignment in a specific language. The generation grammar is the inverse process of the analysis. Below some rules:  Germ. = no DET + NP pl eng. = demonstrative DET + NO pl spn. = Definite DET + NO pl &amp;quot;los hombres no lloran&amp;quot;  Germ. = Indefinite DET + NO sg Spn. = Indefinite DET + NO sg &amp;quot;un hombre no llora&amp;quot; The difference between rules 2 and 3 is that 3 is a statement about the fact that something having the property of being a man does not CD' (is not allowed to cry).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="266" end_page="266" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
5. Summary
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> A computational system must anaIyze and generate definiteness even for those cases where there is no unique referent to look for.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Here I assume that definiteness is not the only function of definite determiners, and that it would be inadequate to use a brute force approach in looking for either uniqueness of referents nor uniqueness of roles as proposed by Bosch &amp; Geurts 89.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Definiteness as a semantic value of definite determiners is one of its possible values (the logical value of the quantifier &amp;quot;only&amp;quot;); more common values are distributional, collective quantification, or a surface phenomena within generic constructions, or in connection with the predicative value.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Definiteness is unmarked when placed before proper names, and becomes an existential quantifier when accompanied by an abstract noun. NPs in directionals and locals usually have a pragmatic value (for more detail (Loebner 1985)).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Romance languages have a higher use of &amp;quot;definiteness&amp;quot; than germanic languages. While the latter use no article the former use them; while the latter use definite determiners the former use demonstratives.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> The internal value, however, remains the same. Compare: 20. Freedom is essential vs. la libertad es esencial 21. Love does not exist vs. el amor no existe Or is &amp;quot;love&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;freedom&amp;quot; more &amp;quot;definite&amp;quot; in Romance languages?</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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