determinandid

Determinandid is a term used in some theories of determiner semantics to denote the referent or referential set that a determiner singles out within a noun phrase. The determinandid is the object or collection of objects that the language user intends to pick out in the discourse, given the determiner’s force (definite, indefinite, demonstrative, universal, etc.). The term is not widely standardized and appears in some theoretical discussions as a convenient label for this role.

In this usage, determinandid can be a singular entity (the dog in "the dog"), a class (all dogs in "dogs"), or a contextually available extension (the chair you sat in). The relation between determiner and determinandid depends on the linguistic framework: in classic truth-conditional semantics, the determiner maps to a set of possible referents; in dynamic or semi-dynamic theories, it influences the introduction or binding of discourse referents. Demonstratives and indexicals often tie the determinandid to the current context, linking reference to the speaker’s deictic center.

Critics note that determiners do more than pick out referents; they encode aspects of individuality, quantity, and accessibility, so determinandid is an abstraction rather than an intrinsic linguistic object. Despite varying analyses, the notion helps discuss how language links form to reference and how referential resolution operates across clauses and languages.

See also: determiners, semantics, reference, anaphora.