Abstract
In this paper I argue that anaphoric pronouns should always be interpreted exhaustively. I propose that pronouns are either used referentially and refer to the speaker's referents of their antecedent indefinites, or descriptively and go proxy for the description recoverable from its antecedent clause. I show how this view can be implemented within a dynamic semantics, and how it can account for various examples that seemed to be problematic for the view that for all unbound pronouns there always should be a notion of exhaustivity/uniqueness involved. The uniqueness assumption for the use of singular pronouns is also shown to be importantto explain what the discourse referents used in dynamic semantics represent.
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Van Rooy, R. Exhaustivity In Dynamic Semantics; Referential And Descriptive Pronouns. Linguistics and Philosophy 24, 621–657 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017597801178
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1017597801178