Demonstratives in discourse

H Zeevat

doi:10.1093/jos/16.4.279

Abstract

There are two influential theories that deal with the role of the context in determining the meaning of sentences: Kaplan's logic of demonstratives and Kamp's discourse representation theory. How Kaplan would deal with the donkey sentences must remain a matter of speculation, but there is an obvious and reasonable answer to the question of how demonstratives should be handled within discourse representation theory. The latter question is addressed in the first part of this paper. The account proposed here makes demonstratives and indexicals a special case of the treatment of definite NPs in terms of presupposition, like the account of names in Geurts (1997) or treatments of definite descriptions like Van der Sandt (1992), Asher & Lascarides (1998) and others. The treatment turns out to be rather different from Kaplan's account of demonstratives and indexicals in that it appears to lack direct referentiality and in that direct referentiality does not entail rigid designation. These problems have been noted before by Kamp and have led to his controversial introduction of external anchors. This paper develops the notion of intensional anchors as an alternative and shows that they - for normal indexicals and demonstratives - allow a proper reconstruction of Kaplan's theory that avoids the problems which come with external anchors. Additional evidence for intensional anchors is provided by an application to the problems of intentional identity discussed by Edelberg.

Highlights

Demonstratives in discourse Åshild NæssUniversity of Oslo Anna MargettsMonash University Yvonne TreisLLACAN (CNRS, INALCO)Over the last decades, there has been extensive discussion in the typological literature of the functions and uses of demonstratives
This study contributes to our understanding of the typological range of determiner and demonstrative systems
It has been suggested that such a system, where the number of deictic distinctions in the pronominal domain supersedes the number of distinctions in the adverbial domain, may be comparatively rare (Levinson 2018: 19)

Summary

Introduction

Demonstratives in discourse Åshild NæssUniversity of Oslo Anna MargettsMonash University Yvonne TreisLLACAN (CNRS, INALCO)Over the last decades, there has been extensive discussion in the typological literature of the functions and uses of demonstratives. It is well established that demonstratives are not restricted to referring to items in situational use based on concrete spatial parameters, but that discourse deictic, anaphoric/tracking, and recognitional uses are common, if not universal, functions of demonstratives (see Himmelmann 1996; 1997; and Diessel 1999 for systematic overviews). Recent fieldwork has found that these spatial situational distinctions are person-based, with xai marking that the referent is close to the addressee, rather than the purely distance-based medial category implied by Parker’s definitions Another major difference between Parker’s description and the description offered here is the addition of the contrastive series of demonstrative forms based on -e. I use the terms “common ground” and “shared knowledge” interchangeably

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