Strong vs. weak definites: Evidence from Lithuanian adjectives

While Lithuanian (a Baltic language) lacks definite articles, it can use an adjectival
system to encode definiteness. Adjectives can appear in a bare short form as in
graži ‘beautiful.nom.f.sg’ and a long form with the definite morpheme -ji(s) as in
gražio-ji ‘beautiful.nom.f.sg-def’. In this paper, I explore definiteness properties of
Lithuanian nominals with long and short form adjectives. Recent cross-linguistic
work identifies two kinds of definites: strong definites based on familiarity and
weak definites licensed by uniqueness (Schwarz 2009; 2013; Arkoh & Matthewson
2013; Jenks 2015; i.a.). Following this line of work, I argue that short form adjec-
tives, in addition to being indefinite, are also compatible with situations licensed
by uniqueness, and in this way resemble weak article definites. Long form adjec-
tives pattern with strong article definites, as evidenced by familiar definite uses and
certain bridging contexts parallel to the German data (Schwarz 2009). This study
provides novel evidence for the distinction between strong versus weak definites
showing that this distinction is not necessarily reflected in determiner patterns,
but it can also be detected in the adjectival system.