Affiliation:
1. University of Birmingham
2. University of York
3. University of Sheffield
Abstract
Abstract
In cognitive linguistics, grammatical structure is known to be representative of meaning. This is also true of
English articles. In this paper, we argue that the choice of article, when the grammar allows it, is dependent on the wider
discourse context and most importantly on how the speaker construes this context. Using survey data from 181 native speakers of
English, we show that the choice of article depends on the activation of semantic frames and how speakers may choose to highlight
different elements of a frame to construe the situation differently. We rely on Entropy to measure the restrictiveness of a
context and to identify particular contexts in which choice is allowed or inhibited. We find that some contextual features such as
the specificity of the referent are more restrictive while Hearer Knowledge is more open to construal.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
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