Definiteness in Wu Chinese

In Wu, a bare argument language, definiteness in the nominal domain can be expressed by demonstrative-classifier-noun phrases and bare nouns. This thesis investigates these two nominal forms in a variety of unique and familiar contexts (Schwarz 2009, Dawson & Jenks 2023) in the Northern Wu dialect, Sodiwo. I present novel data and a semantico-pragmatic analysis for demonstrative-classifier-noun phrases and definite bare nouns. I argue that demonstrative- classifier-noun phrases have both a unique and anaphoric semantics, while definite bare nouns only have a unique semantics. My analysis for anaphoric demonstratives follows Jenks’s (2018) analysis of Mandarin distal demonstratives, Schwarz’s (2009, 2019) analysis of German strong definites, and Ahn’s (2019) analysis on anaphoric expressions. I hypothesize that the Wu demonstrative is undergoing diachronic to become a fully grammaticalized definite article. I argue against a blanket anti-uniqueness requirement in the sense of (Nowak 2019, Blumberg 2020) for the Wu demonstrative and propose instead its degraded felicity with unique celestial bodies can be explained as a phenomenon that arises in the process of grammaticalization, similar to the distal demonstratives in North Germanic (Piotrowska & Skrzypek 2021). Unique celestial bodies belong to the group of globally unique definites that are more ‘resistant’ to the grammaticalization of the demonstrative. As for bare nouns, their anaphoric uses can be exceptionally licenced by their unique semantics when the uniqueness presupposition is met. I show that anaphoric demonstratives introduce zoom-in effects (Wolter 2006) and facilitate subsequent anaphoric bare nouns by zooming in to a subsituation of the resource situation where the uniqueness presupposition can be met. I argue that the unique semantics for anaphoric bare nouns aligns with the predictions from pragmatic principles including Index! (Jenks 2018) as an extension of Maximize Presupposition (Heim 1991) and Don’t Overdeterminate! (Ahn 2019). In addition, the notion of uniqueness should not be trivialized and automatically subsumed under the notion of familiarity, in line with Schwarz (2009).