Definiteness and Indefiniteness in Chinese

Abstract

This article examines how Chinese, as an article-less language, encodes definiteness and indefiniteness. Unlike article languages, Chinese relies on bare nouns, classifier phrases, and demonstratives to convey definiteness-related meanings. These nominals provide flexible interpretations, whose distribution is determined by syntactic position, discourse configuration, and information structure. Cross-linguistic variation further enriches the picture. Bare classifier phrases in many southern varieties, such as Cantonese and Wu, are more systematically associated with the definite reading. Explaining how Chinese encodes definiteness requires close examination of the semantic ingredients of definiteness—uniqueness, familiarity, identifiability—and how different nominal forms in Chinese map onto them. Earlier accounts proposed a division of labor, assigning uniqueness-based definites to bare nouns and familiarity-based definites to demonstratives. Experimental and corpus studies from the early 21st century demonstrate that both bare nouns and demonstratives are felicitous in unique and anaphoric contexts. The discussion further connects to a long-standing theoretical debate on the structural status of nominals—that is, the noun phrase versus determiner phrase debate. The interpretive flexibility of bare nouns, the absence of obligatory determiners, and the systematic use of bare classifier phrases in southern varieties to express definiteness challenge universalist DP projections and motivate a pragmatic, discourse-driven approach to argumenthood. By situating Chinese in a cross-linguistic perspective, the article demonstrates how article-less languages refine our understanding of nominal architecture, definiteness typology, and the interaction between syntax, semantics, and discourse.