Grammaticalization of (in)definiteness in Swedish

Abstract

Modern Swedish is an article language which in the course of its history has developed both definite and indefinite articles. The present study focuses on the grammaticalization of the postponed definite -IN, etymologically the demonstrative pronoun hinn 'yon' and the indefinite EN, whose source is the numeral 'one'. Both grammaticalizations originate with textual uses of the forms: the demonstrative to mark anaphora and the numeral to mark new, persistent referents. The processes are interdependent: the indefinite article does not grammaticalize before the grammaticalization of the definite has been triggered and its development restricts the spread of the definite article to specific uses. Since both grammaticalizations have the same sources in unrelated article languages, this detailed study of the developments in Swedish has a bearing on the studies of other languages as well.