CONTEXT-INDUCED GRAMMATICALIZATION OF THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE IN STATU NASCENDI

Abstract

Based on the mandatory use of indefinite-determiner-like elements in Serbian, a language with no categories of definite and indefinite article, the paper proposes the hypothesis that the language universal grammaticalization of the cardinal number one into an indefinite article is triggered by specific types of contexts, rather than simply by the speakers’ intention to disambiguate between the definite or indefinite reading of the ‘bare’ noun phrase. Given the results of a pragmatic felicitousness test of 35 Serbian native speakers’ intuition, we demonstrate that the exhaustiveness of the nominal description directly influences the obligatoriness of the use of the ‘determiner’—the less informative the description is, the more compulsory the use of the indefinite determiner becomes. We argue that this actually represents the spiritus movens in the grammaticalization of indefinite articles in the languages with this category, via the subsequent process of gradual context-induced reinterpretation.