Indefinite Demonstrative Dieser in German
نویسنده
چکیده
This work offers experimental support for the hypothesis that some indefinite noun phrases do not only introduce new referents but also equip them with a certain ‘forward-looking potential’ which informs the hearer about the ‘importance’ of the referent in the subsequent discourse. Developing means to empirically account for the intuitions that exist with respect to English this-indefinites, I show that German has an analog phenomenon, indefinite dieser, which, in contrast to the simple indefinite article ein, functions to mark referents which are ‘more important’ in that they show high values with respect to two parameters: referential persistence and topic shift potential.
منابع مشابه
Specificity and Referential Persistence – An Experimental Study of Indefinites in German
Indefinite noun phrases introduce new discourse referents equipped with different referential and discourse properties. Indefinites can show wide or narrow scope behavior and they can be interpreted as specific or non-specific. Indefinites also show different discourse effects such as different degrees of discourse prominence. In this paper we present the results of two psycholinguistic pilot s...
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