Witness-loaded and Witness-free Demonstratives
Andy Lücking · 2018
According to current theories of demonstratives, both discourse referentially (endophoric) and real-world referentially (exophoric) uses of demonstrative noun phrases (DemNPs) obey the same mode of reference. Based on the clarification potential of DemNPs and on data on bridging and deferred reference it is argued that only exophoric DemNPs allow for the identification of a demonstratum, while endophoric ones do not. Furthermore, the view that discourse reference does not involve a demonstration act is taken and, hence, contrary to standard assumption, the claim is made that both uses follow different modes of reference. In order to maintain a unified analysis of DemNPs, it is argued to spell out their semantics in terms of a grammar-dialog interface, where demonstratives and demonstration acts contribute to processing instructions for reference management. In this system, exophoric DemNPs are modeled as witness-loaded referential expressions, while endophoric DemNPs remain witness-free. A final claim is that the witness gives rise to manifold perceptual classifications, which in turn license indirect reference. The analysis is implemented in Type Theory with Records (which provides the notion of a witness) within Ginzburg’s dialog framework called KoS. The dynamics of demonstratives is captured by a set of rules that govern their processing in dialog.