‘A relieved Obama’ won’t last long
de Hoop, Helen and Kemperman, Erica,, 32, 75-87 (2015),
doi = https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.32.06hoo,
publicationName = John Benjamins,
issn = 0929-7332,
abstract= Indefinite articles are generally used to introduce new or unfamiliar entities to the discourse. However, in noun phrases such as een opgeluchte Obama ‘a relieved Obama’, the proper noun denotes a familiar individual who does not even have to be new in the discourse. Yet, an indefinite article is used in this construction. We have conducted a corpus study in written Dutch and a production experiment in order to find out the characteristics of this construction as well as its definite counterpart. We will show that the denotation of the adjective plays a crucial role in the semantic composition of the construction, and that preferences for either a definite or an indefinite article correlate with differences in the duration of the state denoted by the adjective. We will use semantic type-theory to account for these findings.,
language=,
type=