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3 their semantic contents. A sample of 150 nouns was collected from the corpus to enter a “web-search procedure” with the Google search engine, to measure how many web pages on the Internet may contain the phrases, "a + N" vs. "the + N". If the semantic traits of a lexical item have little bearing on its being definite or not, all the items would have a frequency ratio of “the-N : a-N” to be within the baseline variation, i.e., the frequency ratio of "the” : “a” in natural discourse (from corpora and web-search measures, about 1:1 to 2.5:1). However, some extreme ratios were found. Initial analyses have shown that the more "semantically relational" a noun is, the more likely it would be modified by the in various contexts, i.e., to have a higher "the-N vs. a-N" ratio of frequency (some examples of these words are: denominator = 18:1, bottom = 13:1, dough = 8.5:1). On the other hand, nouns that seem to have a “low-information” content are least likely to be modified by "the", the measures show (e.g., compliment = 0.3:1, gift = 0.35:1, foothold = 0.04:1). This research adds new evidence to support a semantic view of definiteness. It reveals three relevant phenomena. First, some nouns are likely to be definite regardless of the discourse context, because of their semantic properties of “intrinsic identifiability”. Some items, on the other hands, are “unlikely" to be definite, perhaps because they are semantically “vague” in content. Finally, the semantics of the modifier in a noun phrase frequently play a role in determining the definiteness of the referent, regardless of its discourse status. The role of semantic content in definiteness, as discussed in this study, is an illustration on how semantic contents can enter the realm of pragmatic mechanisms, to exercise their influence on a choice of a “seemingly” pragmatic construction - the definite encoding of nouns. Cited References: Ariel, Mira. 1988. Referring and accessibility. Journal of Linguistics 24: 65-87. Chafe L Wallace. 1976. Giveness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects and Topics. In Subject and Topic, Charles N. Li (Ed). Academic. New York. Clark H. 1977. Bridging. In Johnson-Laird and Wason (eds) Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science. John Wiley and Sons NY Clark, H. 1992. Arenas of Language use. The University of Chicago Press. Erku and Gundel 1987 The Pragmatics of Indirect Anaphors. In Jef Verschueren and Marcella Bertuccelli- Papi (eds) The Pragmatic Perspective: Selected Papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference. John Benjamins. Amsterdam. Fraurud, Kari. 1996. Cognitive Ontology and NP Form. In Reference and Referent Accessibility. Thorstein Fretheim and Jeunette K Gundel (Eds). Gundel et al 2001. Definite Descriptions and Cognitive Status in English: Why Accommodation Is Unnecessary. English-Language-and-Linguistics 2001, 5, 2, Nov, 273-295. Gundel K. Jeanette. 1996. Relevance Theory Meets the Givenness Hierarchy. In Fretheim, Thorstein, & Gundel, Jeanette K. [Eds], Reference and Referent Accessibility. Gundel, Jeanette K; Nancy Hedberg, Ron Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive Status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Ring Low, Abstract Summit to International Workshop on Current Research in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface 2003
4 Haviland,-Susan-E.; Clark,-Herbert-H.. 1974. What's new? Acquiring new information as a process in comprehension. Journal-of-Verbal-Learning-and-Verbal-Behavior;1974, 13, 5, Oct, 512-521.. Lobner 1985. Definites. Journal-of-Semantics; 1985, 4, 4, 279-326. Matsui,-Tomoko. 1998. Pragmatic Criteria for Reference Assignment: A Relevance-Theoretic Account of the Acceptability of Bridging. Pragmatics-and-Cognition; 1998, 6, 1-2, 47-97. Prince, Ellen F. 1981. Toward a Taxonomy of Given-New Information. in: P. Cole (ed.), Radical Pragmatics, Academic, New York Prince, Ellen F.. 1992. The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness, and information status.. In: William Mann and Sandra Thompson, eds., Discourse description: Diverse linguistic analyses of a fund-raising text, 295-325. Sperber, D. and D. Wilson. 1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Ring Low, Abstract Summit to International Workshop on Current Research in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface 2003
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