Towards a computational semantics for demonstrative anaphors

Authors

Abstract

Demonstratives exhibit a dual nature with respect to their discourse behavior. On the one hand, they behave as directly referential elements commonly accompanied by a pointing gesture in their canonical use. On the other hand, speakers make use of demonstratives to refer to a range of entities that have been previously mentioned in discourse (discourse anaphora), such as events, propositions or any other type of abstract entities apparently lacking any kind of spatio-temporal anchoring. In this paper, we propose a characterization of Spanish demonstrative determiners and pronouns as generalized quantifiers, which will allow us to account for their heterogeneous referential nature and the principal differences among these elements.

Author Biographies

  • Iker Zulaica-Hernandez, The Ohio State University

    Ph.D. Spanish Linguistics

    The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH USA)

  • Javier Gutierrez-Rexach, The Ohio State University

    Professor Spanish Linguistics

    The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH USA)

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Published

2009-11-27

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Section

Research Articles

How to Cite

Towards a computational semantics for demonstrative anaphors. (2009). Linguamática, 1(2), 81-90. https://linguamatica.com/index.php/linguamatica/article/view/24