The Acquisition of Compositional Definiteness in Norwegian

Abstract

This paper aims to explain why the prenominal definiteness marker found in modified structures is acquired much later than the suffixal definite article in Norwegian. The coexistence of the two definiteness markers is the result of the double definiteness phenomenon in Norwegian, which occurs in definite structures involving an attributive adjective. A lexical insertion approach to the double definiteness phenomenon is proposed, according to which the discrepancy in the order of acquisition is argued to be due to the way semantic features are lexicalized in Norwegian.