1.3. Indefiniteness
Indefinite noun phrases are nominal arguments which refer to those discourse referents that are unknown to the interlocutor. They fulfil the function of introducing new entities in the conversation. This is exemplified below.
today morning officea poss1 man one(indef)b bcomea
‘This morning a man came to my office.’
Indefinite noun phrases can refer to non-unique discourse referents, for example to elements which display their properties with a class of other elements. For this reason, these elements are not uniquely identifiable, as displayed in the example below.
night star CL(5): ‘shine’. beautiful-int
‘Tonight, the stars are shining and it’s very beautiful.’
