Coreference and meaning

Philosophical Studies 154 (2):301 - 324 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Sometimes two expressions in a discourse can be about the same thing in a way that makes that very fact evident to the participants. Consider, for example, 'he' and 'John' in 'John went to the store and he bought some milk'. Let us call this 'de jure' coreference. Other times, coreference is 'de facto' as with 'Mark Twain' and 'Samuel Clemens' in a sincere use of 'Mark Twain is not Samuel Clemens'. Here, agents can understand the speech without knowing that the names refer to the same person. After surveying many available linguistic and pragmatic tools (intentions to corefer, presuppositions, meanings, indexing, discourse referents, binding etc.) I conclude that we must posit a new semantic primitive to account for de jure coreference.

Author Profiles

N. Ángel Pinillos
Arizona State University
Nestor Pinillos
Arizona State University

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
923 (#13,092)

6 months
88 (#41,632)

Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?