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# Defining Definiteness in Turoyo

**Authors:** Miriam Yifrach; [Elizabeth Coppock](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/elizabeth-coppock/) · **Year:** 2021 · **Venue:** Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 6(1): 118 **Link:** [glossa-journal.org/article/id/5874](https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/id/5874/) · library `lingbulk-2021-yifrach-defining-definiteness-turoyo` · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

[**1** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W3207830963) openalex · 2026-10-18[Glossa: a journal of general linguistics](https://openalex.org/S4210226983)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5874)
- [PDF](https://www.glossa-journal.org/article/5874/galley/18026/download)
- [DOI 10.16995/glossa.5874](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5874)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W3207830963)

**Authors (2)**

1. [Miriam Yifrach](https://openalex.org/A5071670131) h 1 · 1 citations · 1 works
2. [Elizabeth Coppock](https://openalex.org/A5074610868) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9987-344X) · h 17 · 1130 citations · 80 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex (2026-10-18); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

The paper extends Schwarz's typology of definite articles from "strong" and "weak" to also "super-weak", and gives a method to test for the last type. The test uses questionnaires and interviews on Turoyo, an endangered Neo-Aramaic variety of Ṭur Abdin, whose definite article is ʼi (feminine) or ʼu (masculine), written in Syriac script with alap-heh plus yod or waw. The data show a wide distribution of the article, including anti-uniqueness effects with exclusives ("not the only" readings), and definiteness spreading with demonstratives and possessives. Superlative adjectives compete with the article for its syntactic slot. The authors propose a cline of articles ordered by entailment, in which stronger articles entail weaker ones; this also explains the anaphoric uses. The paper is an article, not a book; all of the above comes from its main text.

## Ideas

- I1. A presupposition check instead of a uniqueness check: the definite is licensed when the set of satisfiers has at most one member (the super-weak entry), and an exclusive or a "not the only" sentence is read as a test of that. In `prag`, a definite NP whose head has several satisfiers in the world should be marked and not rejected.
- I2. A test set of environments for the Neo-Aramaic article: part-whole bridging (weak), product-producer bridging (strong), exclusives, superlatives, and demonstrative co-occurrence. Each test sentence gets an expected class; the questionnaire design of the paper is the model.
- I3. A feature bundle for the cline in the lexicon: each article form lists which environments it may occur in, so that a rule can read off the weakest article that fits a context.

## For Mova

I1 belongs to `prag` (the definiteness check) and to the `world` layer, where a definite is looked up as a unique referent. I2 and I3 belong in [The noun in Biblical Aramaic](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/arc/nouns/) (a Neo-Aramaic note on the definite article) and in [The Aramaic family and the Jewish varieties](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/arc/family/), since Turoyo is not yet a chapter of its own.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.16995/glossa.5874](https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5874)

```
@article{yifrach2021defining,
  title = {{Defining Definiteness in Turoyo}},
  author = {Yifrach, Miriam and Coppock, Elizabeth},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2021},
  doi = {10.16995/glossa.5874},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5874}
}
```

- [← previous The morphosyntax of aspect stacking in Northeastern Neo-Aramaic](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/lingbulk-2016-kalin-morphosyntax-aspect-stacking-northeastern-neo/)
- [next → From Pattern to Interpretation. Using Colibri Core to Detect Translation Patterns in the Peshitta.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/lingbulk-2022-coeckelbergs-pattern-interpretation-colibri-core-detect/)
- [↑ back to Aramaic](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/arc/)

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