Exhaustivity in Dynamics Semantics; Referential and Descriptive Pronouns *

نویسنده

  • Robert van Rooy
چکیده

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 important to explain what the discourse referents used in dynamic semantics represent.

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تاریخ انتشار 2001