We present a number of experiments testing influential hypotheses about the meaning of definite descriptions (in languages with articles, represented here by German) and bare nominals (in articleless languages, represented here by Russian). Our results are in line with the commonly entertained hypothesis that definite descriptions convey uniqueness (if singular) or maximality (if plural), but fail to support two hypotheses about bare nominal interpretation, namely that singular bare nominals convey uniqueness (Dayal 2004) and that topical bare nominals convey uniqueness/maximality (Geist 2010, among many others). Uniqueness or maximality inferences are expected to arise via covert type-shifting under these approaches. Our results are compatible with what we take to be the null hypothesis, namely that bare nominals in articleless languages are existential and free of presuppositional semantics, even if they correspond—in their use—to definite descriptions (Heim 2011).

中文翻译：

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有或没有文章的语言中的确定性，唯一性和最大性

我们提供了许多实验，测试有关定性描述（在带有文章的语言中，以德语表示）和裸名（在没有文章的语言中，以俄语表示）的影响力假设方面的假设。我们的结果与普遍接受的假设一致，即确定性描述传达了唯一性（如果是单数）或最大值（如果是复数），但是未能支持关于裸名解释的两个假设，即单数裸名代表了唯一性（Dayal 2004）和主题裸露的标语传达出独特性/最大性（Geist 2010，以及其他许多东西）。在这些方法下，预期通过隐式类型转换会产生唯一性或最大性推断。我们的结果与我们假设为零的假设相符，