University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Doi
Abstract
Lewis’ (1973; 1979) salience analysis of definite description reference suggests that an utterance of ‘the F’ refers to the most salient F, according to a contextual salience ranking. This analysis was created to account for referring improper definite descriptions. As shown by von Heusinger (2004), the salience analysis can also be used to explain anaphoric definite descriptions. Any formalization of the salience analysis will require a method for formally representing salience, such as Lewis’ order-theoretic method or von Heusinger’s choice-theoretic method. In this thesis, I will argue that the order-theoretic method explains certain features of salience that the choice-theoretic method does not, and therefore the order-theoretic method should be favored. I will also show how von Heusinger’s Dynamic Semantics with Choice Functions can be adapted to utilize the order-theoretic method, thus providing a formal modeling of the context change described by the salience explanation of anaphoric definite descriptions.Master of Art
