Numerals and Definite Articles:Taking"One"as an Example
For languages like Chinese that do not have definite articles,what components can serve as definite articles has been of controversy over the past three decades.Given that the essential property of cardinal numbers is counting,and the intrinsic property of definite articles is definiteness(which as a grammatical marker would help speakers to uniquely identify a particular entity),based on cross-linguistic facts,it is concluded that the cardinal number"one"cannot possibly be grammaticalized into a definite article,but can be evolved into an indefinite article,that counting function of cardinal numbers is incompatible with the definiteness function of definite articles,which logically determines that there is no possibility that the former could be grammaticalized into the latter,and that the numeral"one"being interpreted as a definite marker is essentially a pragmatic phenomenon rather than a grammatical phenomenon.
"one"numeraldefinite articleindefinite articledemonstrativedefiniteness function
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