Sentence examples for definite from high-quality English sources.

• Both count and mass nouns admit the definite article.

• The definite integral (also called Riemann integral) of a function f(x) is denoted as

• Why suppose that definite descriptions fail to refer?

• Such definite descriptions are therefore “de facto” rigid designators.

• Still, there are also reasons to question Russell’s claim that definite descriptions fail to refer.

• We will conclude with some remarks concerning issues specific to indefinite and definite singulars.

• For instance, the definite description ‘the inaugural speaker in 2009’ will generate the following Kaplanian matrix:

• Is the future definite, then, and not contingent, since the gods know future facts in a definite manner?

Use definite in a sentence.

• Definite singular generics appear to invoke constraints similar to those of indefinite singulars, but also some more besides.

• So even if each can be shown to be definite in distinct contexts of measurement, can both be definite at the same time?

• Other constraints on the acceptability of definite singulars have been noted by Nunberg and Pan (1975), Carlson (1977), Dahl (1985), and others.

• Like definite singular generics, bare singular generics have received less attention than definite singular generics and bare plural generics.

• And definite descriptions, given Russell’s view of definite descriptions, are not genuine referring terms but are instead quantificational expressions.

• Likewise a “propositional function” 𝔈(x), in which the variable term x ranges over all individuals of a class 𝔎, is said to be “definite” if it is definite for each single individual x of the class 𝔎.

• Like Austin, but unlike Searle, Bach and Harnish argue for the concept of locutionary acts: acts of using sentences with “a more or less definite ‘sense’ and a more or less definite ‘reference,’” in Austin’s words.

• Although they may lack information expressible by some definite description—let alone by a single definite description—for uniquely identifying many concrete particulars, still people manage to secure reference to them.

definite sentence examples

• They have neither a definite size nor shape, whereas ordinary solids have both a definite size and a definite shape, and liquids have a definite size, or volume, even though they adapt their shape to that of the container in which they are placed.

• On some traditional descriptivist theories of proper names, the content of a proper name can be expressed by a purely qualitative definite description, which is a definite description that does not contain any directly-referential terms (such as proper names and indexicals, if these are directly-referential).

• This new proposal matches the old one in cases where the old one applies, and generalizes it by fixing the definite-valued properties in terms of multi-dimensional projectors when the biorthogonal decomposition is degenerate: definite-valued properties need not always be represented by one-dimensional vectors—higher-dimensional subspaces of the Hilbert space can also occur.

• Since definite descriptions also belong under the general head of definite noun phrases (along with pronouns and demonstratives), this evidence is used to support views on which names are a type of definite description (Sloat 1969; Larson & Segal 1995: 354–355; Elbourne 2005), but is consistent with names forming their own species of definite.