| Resumo | Determination is a kind of modification of the noun phrase that specifies the mode of reference and converts a nominal into a noun phrase. Functionally, determiners relate the
designated entity to the universe of discourse by specifying its relation to the set of referents designated by the nominal and by marking its information status. Thus, determination is, on the one hand, bound to the formal structure , and on the other hand, to the discourse-referential properties of the noun phrase. Determiners are, for instance, definite and indefinite articles, personal pronouns as determiners, demonstrative pronouns, adnominal possessives, and some quantifiers. Definiteness, on the other hand, is not a language-specific grammatical category, as is often presupposed in descriptive grammars and even in studies of general linguistics. It is rather a universal functional domain comprising various semantic and pragmatic notions, which in turn could be considered as comparative concepts. The concepts of definiteness are familiarity and identifiability of the referent, since this is present in the universe of discourse of the interlocutors. Further concepts that belong to this functional domain and that are discussed in the literature are uniqueness, salience, existence, and inclusiveness. Determination and definiteness overlap to some degree but are by no means identical. The study of determiners implies methodologically a semasiological perspective. The study of the marking of definiteness, on the other hand, requires an onomasiological point of view. The function and distribution of determiners as well as the marking or not-marking of definiteness is often bound to discourse. Therefore, the study of determination and definiteness requires text corpora as empirical basis. The topic has been studied for European languages, but much less so for indigenous languages of North and South America. It is the goal of this workshop to fill this gap.
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