identifiedness

Viewed syntagmatically, article-introduced nominal clusters have been judged either to refer to an already mentioned or to an already known referent or not so to refer. If they do so refer, such reference is either anaphoric or deictic, and it signals identifiedness. Bloomfield seems to equate definiteness with identifiedness. And Paul Christophersen implies that identifiedness is one component of familiarity, familiarity being the distinctive meaning he assigns to the definite article the, […]

1968, Ruth Crymes, “Articles and Article-Introduced Nominal Clusters”, in Some Systems of Substitution Correlations in Modern American English (Janua Linguarum: Studia Memoriae Nicolai van Wijk Dedicata; 23), The Hague; Paris: Mouton, →ISBN, →LCCN, chapter 4 (Substitution in the Nominal Hierarchy), […], page 115

Observers have asserted that the identifiedness of the miners, the little girl, and the balloonist makes us especially willing to help them. As an empirical matter, this assertion is unproved and probably mistaken. As a normative matter, it seems clear that the rights of people not to be harmed should not depend on the identifiedness of the people who will be harmed.

2000, Lisa Heinzerling, “The Rights of Statistical People”, in Robin West, editor, Rights (The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory: Second Series), Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate/Dartmouth, published 2001, →ISBN, part III (Aspirational Rights: Possibilities and Histories), page 622