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In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases (NPs), distinguishing between referents/entities that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). In English, for example, definite noun phrases preclude asking "which one?" There is considerable variation in the expression of definiteness across languages and some languages do not express it at all. For example, in English definiteness is usually marked by the selection of determiner. Certain determiners, such as ''a/an, many, any, either'', and ''some'' typically mark an NP as indefinite. Others, including ''the, this, every'', and ''both'' mark the NP as definite. In some other languages, the marker is a clitic that attaches phonologically to the noun (and often to modifying adjectives), e.g. the Hebrew definite article ''ha-'' or the Arabic definite article ''al-''. In yet other languages, definiteness is indicated by affixes on the noun or on modifying adjectives, much like the expression of grammatical number and grammatical case. In these languages, the inflections indicating definiteness may be quite complex. In the Germanic languages and Balto-Slavic languages, for example (as still in modern German and Lithuanian), there are two paradigms for adjectives, one used in definite noun phrases and the other used in indefinite noun phrases. In some languages, e.g. Hungarian, definiteness is marked on the verb. ==Use in different languages== Examples are: * Phrasal clitic: as in Basque: Cf. ("woman"), (woman-ART: "the woman"), (woman beautiful-ART: "the beautiful woman"); Romanian: ("man"), (man-ART: "the man"), (man-ART good: "the good man") or (good-ART man: "the good man") * Noun affix: as in Albanian: ("boy"), (man-ART: "the boy"); (man-ART elder: "the elder son"), ("girl"), (man-ART: "the girl"); (man-ART pretty: "the pretty girl") * Prefix on both noun and adjective: Arabic (''al-kitāb al-kabīr'') with two instances of ''al-'' (DEF-book-DEF-big, literally, "the book the big") * Distinct verbal forms: as in Hungarian: (read-1sg.pres.INDEF a book-ACC.sg: "I read a book") versus (read-1sg.pres.DEF the book-ACC.sg: "I read the book") Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Semitic, and auxiliary languages generally have a definite article, sometimes used as a postposition. Many other languages do not. Some examples are Chinese, Japanese, Finnish, and modern Slavic languages except Bulgarian and Macedonian. When necessary, languages of this kind may indicate definiteness by other means such as Demonstratives. It is common for definiteness to interact with the marking of case in certain syntactic contexts. In many languages direct objects (DOs) receive distinctive marking only if they are definite. For example, in Turkish, the DO in the sentence (meaning "I saw the men") is marked with the suffix (indicating definiteness). The absence of the suffix means that the DO is indefinite ("I saw men"). In Serbo-Croatian (and in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian), and to a lesser extent in Slovene, definiteness can be expressed morphologically on prenominal adjectives. The short form of the adjective is interpreted as indefinite, while the long form is definite and/or specific: * short (indefinite): Serbo-Croatian "a new city"; Lithuanian "a white book" * long (definite): "the new city, a certain new city"; "the white book, a certain white book" In Japanese, a language which indicates noun functions with postpositions, the topic marker (wa) may include definiteness. For example, (''uma wa'') can mean "the horse", while (''uma ga'') can mean "a horse". In some languages, the definiteness of the object affects the transitivity of the verb. In the absence of peculiar specificity marking, it also tends to affect the telicity of mono-occasional predications. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Definiteness」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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