Inalienable possession
the status of the definite article
We argue that the use of the definite article in French inalienable possession constructions does not lead us to abandon a unified analysis of definite articles. We face two challenges. First, the definite article in French inalienable possession constructions does not seem to convey uniqueness:
Jean l�ve la main
�John raises the hand� is felicitous independently of whether Jean has one or two hands. Second, if the definite article in these constructions is a run-of-the-mill definite article we seem to be left without an explanation for the variation between French and English that led both Gu�ron (1983, 1985) and Vergnaud and Zubizarreta (1992) to assume that the definite article in French is structurally different from the one in English.
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Suijkerbuijk, Michelle, Sterre Leufkens & Marten van der Meulen
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