La pragmática del sintagma y las descripciones definidas incompletas

the general aim of this paper is to explain from a new area of pragmatics, phrasal pragmatics, how incomplete definite descriptions, a kind of singular and definite noun phrases, can be part of a sentence used to say something true (or even false). our proposal is to argue that when speakers make a non-generic use of a definite and singular noun phrase, a definite description is identified. once the definite and singular noun phrase is identified as a definite description, we argue that the interpretation of the determiner ？the？, a quantifier, together with the rest of the noun phrase is intended to provide an object descriptively characterized as an ingredient of the proposition expressed, object that falls under the concept that the rest of the noun phrase puts across. this is so, if the rest of the noun phrase puts across an individual concept, which is the type of argument suitable for the function that characterizes the quantifier ？the？ in its definite use. in many occasions, this condition is not fulfilled because there are more than one object that falls under the concept and the interpretation of the description is blocked and identified as incomplete. once the definite and singular noun phrase is identified as an incomplete definite description, its interpretation demands the pragmatic process of enrichment to get an individual concept. once the individual concept that functions as argument of the quantifier is obtained, the description refers to its value, to the object that falls under the individual concept that characterizes them descriptively and the sentence used that includes it allows saying something about that object that can be true (or even false). both the identification and interpretation criteria of the incomplete definite descriptions are subpropositional in the sense that they do not require the retrieval of a proposition for its application. they are the object of study of phrasal pragmatics.