Discourse Structure and the Structure of Context - Multiple Choices

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22 which are (presumed to be) shared by utterer and addressee. It should be clear from what I have said that this is the role for anchors in the present essay. Indeed, each of the components of articulated conctexts may contain anchored discourse referents (with the exception of KGen, which presumably has no discourse referents in its main universe at all). This I assume is true in particular of KEnc. In fact, for discourse referents in KEnc I take this to be the typical case; and that in particular for those discourse referents which "represent by name", i.e. those discourse referents xN which are accompanied by a condition of the form "Named(xN,N)". This means that the directly referential character and function of the name N are part of the common ground that is presupposed by discourse-initial uses of N. Moreover, when N is used as part of an utterance U, the directly referential function of N is transferred from KEnc both to the representation of the content of U and to the discourse context (into which the use of N introduces xN). 17 What about uses of proper names that are not discourse-initial? It has been noted that such uses have an anaphoric character. (See (Geurts, 17 Note that it is possible for different names N1 and N2 to be anchored to the same entity d. This may happen in one of two ways. The first one, which holds no particular inerest, is that where a single discourse referent x comes with two naming conditions, "Named(x,N1)" and "Named(x,N2)", Suppose that x is anchored to the individual d. The intuitive meaning of this configuration is that the discourse participants have a representation of the individual d that is known under two different names, N1 and N2. In such a case either N1 or N2 could be used felicitously in a discourse reference to d. The more interesting case is that where KEnc contains two distinct discourse referents x and y with the naming conditions "Named(x,N1)" and "Named(y,N2)" and the anchors and . In effect this means that N1 and N2 are two names for the same thing, but that the discourse participants may be unaware that they have the same bearer. It is important in this connection that external anchors should not be seen as part of the explicit knowledge of those who are in possession of the representations containing the anchored discousre referents. External anchors may be implied by the knowledge of the one in possession of the representation, in combination with the way in which this agent is linked up to the world (directly or as part of a larger society). But it is in their nature that the specific information they contribute is not capturable in purely representational terms in any case; and especially in the case of proper names the actually representable knowledge may, as we noticed above, fall very far short of this contribution, or may even be in conflict with it. Thus two discourse participants who share the information given by KEnc may have representations for entities named as N1 and N2, be committed to these entites being in fact one and the same, but yet be unaware of this fact.
23 1999 (?)).) Within the present set-up this intuition can be explicated as follows. When a name N is used for the second (or third, ...) time in a discourse D, i.e. if it has been preceded by a discourse-initial use in D, then a discourse referent for the entity named by N is already part of KDis. So interpretation of this occurrence of N can make use of a member of UKDis as "anaphoric antecedent". If we take it as a hallmark of the anaphoric use of an expression that the discourse referent representing its referent is identified with (more generally: taken to stand in some particular relation to) some discourse referent from KDis, then, evidently, such non-initial uses of a name qualify as anaphoric. 18 It should be noted that there is also a further difference between discourse-initial and non-discourse-initial uses of proper names. A discourse-initial use of N may require accommodation, viz. when KEnc does not contain a discourse referent with the condition that it 18 I add, perhaps unnecessarily, that the notion of a (non-)discourse-initial use is a term of art insofar as the repetition of the name N in a discourse D does not automatically qualify the later use or uses as non-discourse-initial in the sense intended here. When N is ambiguous, and in particular when it is ambiguous in KEnc in the sense that KEnc contains more than one discourse referent accompanied by the condition that the entity it represents is named 'N', then in principle a later use of N can also qualify as discourse-initial in the intended sense. For instance, supppose that KEnc contains two discourse referents x and y, each accompanied by the condition that the entity it represents has the name N. Then it is in principle possible for the first use of N in D to be interpreted as referring to the entity represented by x while the second use is interpreted as referring to the entity represented by y. In that case both uses should be considered discourse-initial in D. In general, a use of a name can only be described as (non-)discourse-initial relative to a given interpretation. Given this clarification of the terminology, it is possible to assert that the use of a name is non-discourse-initial iff its referent is represented in the current discourse context. Thus, in view of our explication of anaphoricity, the non-discourse-initial uses of names are just their anaphoric uses. I said that it is possible in principle for a later use of a name to be discourse-initial in the technical sense intended. In actual fact, however, such uses are fairly rare. Using the same name N twice in a discousre - in the specific sense of twice using the NP which consists solely of the word N - while intending different referents for the two uses, impresses speakers as a violation of the rules of proper, cooperative language use. If the name N is to be used a second time in the same discourse, but now to refer to a different individual, there exists a strong preference for an NP which indicates the referential shift explicitly. E.g., when the discourse participants know two people called "Robin", and one of these has already referred to by means of the one word NP Robin, then it is much more natural to refer to the other Robin by something like the other Robin (the male Robin or something of that sort) than by using the NP Robin. again.
Page 1 and 2: 1 Discourse Structure and the Struc
Page 3 and 4: 3 cumulative nature of interpretati
Page 5 and 6: 5 as the preceding sentence provide
Page 7 and 8: 7 function as representations of pa
Page 9 and 10: 9 "week-before-that-of n"(t) "the-d
Page 11 and 12: 11 There has been a tendency within
Page 13 and 14: 13 actual time of the represented u
Page 15 and 16: 15 however, that as things stand I
Page 17 and 18: 17 (1) Singular third person person
Page 19 and 20: 19 In normal language use most disc
Page 21: 21 (It is this commitment which mak
Page 25 and 26: 25 The ij-th interpretation (j = 1,
Page 27 and 28: 27 time and (in those cases where t
Page 29 and 30: 29 So far in this section we have o
Page 31 and 32: 31 below; and question its general
Page 33 and 34: 33 The possibility of selecting one
Page 35 and 36: 35 presented as something that is g
Page 37 and 38: 37 case of now too. And indeed ther
Page 39 and 40: 39 utterance time. Among these are
Page 41 and 42: 41 clear conception of who he means
Page 43 and 44: 43 which a single speaker may shift
Page 45 and 46: 45 One implication of this is that
Page 47 and 48: 47 interpreting D refer to this sam
Page 49 and 50: 49 members of which are discourse r
Page 51 and 52: 51 (ii) The indexical correspondenc
Page 53 and 54: 53 have discussed already - or of t
Page 55 and 56: 55 representing the demonstrative's
Page 57 and 58: 57 believe that there are no such c
Page 59 and 60: 59 is represented in at least one o
Page 61 and 62: 61 neither of us ever knew personal
Page 63 and 64: 63 choice of determiner will serve
Page 65 and 66: 65 is an indexical with equal right
Page 67 and 68: 67 There is a second point connecte
Page 69 and 70: 69 These are imponderabilia just pe
Page 71 and 72: 71 3.4 Definite Descriptions. Some
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73 same semantic or pragmatic effec
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75 b. C y x }, > president(y) presi
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seem to support the view that the c
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79 Similar considerations apply to
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81 sentence as a whole, or are ther
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83 descriptions, demonstratives) th
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85 which, they rightly observed, ma
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87 Sometimes the topic situation is
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89 with a supporting demonstration)
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91 these entities belong to the top
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93 in which the discourse tawhat is
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95 Call a discourse referent x belo
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97 "Look, there is a blackbird with
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99 That notions of context vary is
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101 There is a second distinction,
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103 important are the different way
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105 intensonal model MWe may assume
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107 Justifications of (3) within a
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109 utterance of sentence (2.a.i) (
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111 present tense. (i) is appropria
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113 whole, these times shift as the
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115 the statements we make. This ma
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117 always committed to having a pa
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119 domain - is an aspect of the im
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121 Meaning depends on context. The
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123 Intuitively there seems t be a
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125 Not that I will go very far. I
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127 In Section 1 mentioned the prob
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