Apparentexceptionsto the definiteness effect in English

Abstract

In this article, new data from a corpus study and experimental data concerning the definiteness effect in English there-sentences is presented. In the corpus data, we find noun phrases including both strong quantifiers like every and definite expressions. It is shown that these examples are exceptional in the sense that they give rise to cardinal readings of the strong quantifier every and the definite determiner the. As cardinal readings are generally not ruled out by the definiteness restriction, these readings are not exceptions to the definiteness effect.

Keywords

• there-sentences
• existentials
• definiteness effect
• strong vs. weak quantifiers