Comparative semantic study of the article system in Portuguese and the determination marking mechanisms in Chinese
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.5002Keywords:
Binary features, Portuguese articles, Determination marking mechanisms, Chinese languageAbstract
A distinguishing feature of the Portuguese language and the Chinese language is that the former has anarticle system and the second uses other mechanisms to mark the definite or indefinite status of noun phrase (NP). The present work compares the two languages, describing the relationship between the two determination marking systems and the types of NP classified based on the model of the two binary features of Huebner (1983), according to which the use of the article depends on the semantic properties ofNP. The results of the comparative study may help Chinese-speaking students to better understand how to correctly use Portuguese articles, being aware that Portuguese articles encode definiteness, not specificity.
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