Indexed definiteness without demonstratives in Guébie

In this article we describe the semantic distribution of the Gu´ebie definite enclitic =a, which occurs in a subset of unique definite contexts as well as in anaphoric contexts. We further show that Guébie completely lacks an exophoric demonstrative, the only known counterexample to the proposed universal that every language has demonstratives. We analyze =a as an indexed unique definite, a novel category of definiteness, and bare nouns are inherently indefinite. The Guébie facts suggest that while demonstratives are not universal, indexed definiteness is.