A Comparative Study Of (In) Definiteness In English And Chinese

(In)Definiteness is an important feature in natural languages. A prototype of definiteness and indefiniteness in English is the definite article"the"and the indefinite article"a/an". In Chinese, there is no the-like definite article. In order to study the features of (in)definiteness of Chinese from an empirical approach, this thesis chooses the novel the Hundred and One Dalmatians and its Chinese version as language database. The (in)definite noun phrases in English and Chinese are collected and contrasted. Basing on the analysis, the writer elaborates on the lexical and positional devices in expressing (in)definiteness in Chinese. However, definite expressions are not inherently definite in any absolute sense. (In)Definitenss is highly context-sensitive and thus leads to some complexities in the judgment of (in)definiteness in both languages. What is equally important is that (in)definiteness is never restricted to the nominal phrases; other grammatical categories like verbs, adverbs can shed light on (in)definiteness, too.