This article points out problems in current dynamic treatments of anaphora and provides a new account that solves these by grafting Muskens' Compositional Discourse Representation Theory onto a partial theory of types. Partiality is exploited to keep track of which discourse referents have been introduced in the text (thus avoiding the overwrite problem) and to account for cases of anaphoric failure. Another key assumption is that the set of discourse referents is well-ordered, so that we can keep track of the (...) order in which they have been introduced, allowing a semantic characterization of anaphoric accessibility across stretches of discourse. Unlike other dynamic approaches, the system defines semantic values for unresolved anaphors. This leads to a clear separation of monotonic and non-monotonic content (in this case anaphoric resolution) and arguably provides a sound basis for a non-monotonic theory of anaphoric resolution. (shrink)

The characteristic property of definite descriptions in natural language is commonly assumed to be their uniqueness requirement, although there is disagreement with respect to how occurrences should be interpreted, for instance with regard to the well-known restriction problem. I offer a novel argument against characterizing definite expressions in terms of uniqueness. If a singular definite description ?the F? implies that its denotation is the unique satisfier of ?F? (relative to a context) then there are real-life states of affairs that can (...) be described in simple first-order languages, but which we are simply unable to describe accurately in natural language. I argue, first, that there is no way to describe these states of affairs properly without using definite descriptions. Second, if definite descriptions imply uniqueness we will systematically get the wrong truth conditions, regardless of whatever semantic or pragmatic resources the defender of the uniqueness-implying approach invokes. Hence, the Russellian idea of characterizing definite descriptions in terms of uniqueness must be given up. In the final section I explain what an adequate account of definite expressions must achieve?primarily coordinating elements brought to salience by context or previous discourse?and sketch a way of accomplishing this by using a liberal version of familiarity theory. Although there may be other accounts that can do the job, the account I sketch (based on an approach that has largely been overlooked) shows promise and can easily deal with the inexpressibility problem. (shrink)