Definiteness in Czech

Definiteness, a subcategory of nominal determination, is a universal of natural languages. Languages lacking an overt article, such as Czech, mark definiteness using various discourse-anchored signals, such as word order and intonation. In sentence-initial position, bare NPs are definite. For discourse-anchored definite NPs in other sentence positions (these include post-rhematic themes as well as retrieved or reevaluated entities from remote discourse) and NPs in expressive speech, Czech uses a deictically neutral determiner ten 'this, that; the' for definite NPs. The resultant NP with determiner may correspond to articled or demonstrative-modified NPs in articled languages; the categories are fluid. In both colloquial and formal language ten is developing article-like functions.