6.4. Lack of the article with Hearer-old items marks salience
As stated above, there are clear examples of Discourse-old and other Hearer-old
items which are referred to anarthrously. Levinsohn (1992:97) notes this problem:
Throughout the New Testament, nouns whose referents are “known, particular” (Blass,
Debrunner, and Funk 1961, sec. 252) are at times preceded by the definite article (i.e.
“arthrous”) and at times appear without it (i.e. they are “anarthrous”).
Levinsohn (1992:99) interprets this as due to “salience”:
anarthrous references to particular, known participants either mark the participant as locally
salient or highlight the speech which he utters.
I agree with Levinsohn’s basic conclusion, that the absence of the article for a
“known, particular” referent (i.e. Hearer-old) shows salience or highlighting. However, I
would like to draw a more broad-reaching conclusion, that all arthrous reference to
“things” identifies them as Hearer-old, and all anarthrous reference to “things” identifies
them as salient.
The presence of the article marks Hearer-old and says “this is the same old known
particular item, don’t pay special attention to it, as you already know what it is”.
The absence of the article marks salience and says “hey, pay attention” or in
technical terminology “use extra processing-effort”.
A Discourse-new Hearer-new item is always salient and lacks the article at first mention.
This says “Pay attention. Make a new mental scenario for me.” This new scenario
will definitely be linked with, and perhaps become a subsection of, the scenario for the
“category” it belongs in. For example, “a man” opens a new scenario for this particular
individual, but this new scenario is linked to the general scenario for “man” which is a
cluster of, cum generalization from, all previous knowledge (experiential or learned)
about men. Thus if the speaker says “his feet” the audience will not respond “But you
never said he had feet!” They expect feet, not from the new scenario “a man”, but from
its link to the generic scenario “men”. Only in very restricted cases, such as science
fiction or brand new knowledge, is a brand-new scenario opened unrelated to anything
else, e.g. “Along came a zorn”. Even here, the audience assumes from the action, that a
zorn is probably animate.
In contrast a Hearer-old item, whether Discourse-new or Discourse-old, typically has
the article. So if the item is Discourse-old and Discourse-recent (assumed by the writer to
be still in the audience’s short-term processing memory) the article is expected, marking
Hearer-old, e.g. Acts 18:12, 14, 17 (from Levinsohn 1992:100), where Gallio is introduced
anarthrously, but referred back to arthrously. Similarly, Acts 12:1–17 where Herod
and Peter are introduced anarthrously, but referred back to with the article.