Exhaustivity in dynamic semantics; referential and descriptive pronouns
Linguistics and Philosophy 24 (5):621-657 (2001)
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.Reprint years
2004
DOI
10.1023/a:1017597801178
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Citations of this work
Descriptions, pronouns, and uniqueness.Karen S. Lewis - 2022 - Linguistics and Philosophy 45 (3):559-617.
Speaker's reference and anaphoric pronouns.Karen S. Lewis - 2013 - Philosophical Perspectives 27 (1):404-437.
References found in this work
Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases.Irene Heim - 1982 - Dissertation, Umass Amherst
From Discourse to Logic: Introduction to Modeltheoretic Semantics of Natural Language, Formal Logic and Discourse Representation Theory.Hans Kamp & Uwe Reyle - 1993 - Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.