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On indefinite descriptions1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2009

Villy Rouchota
Villy Rouchota*
Affiliation:
University College London
*
Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. E-mail: villy@ling.ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper explores some aspects of the semantics and pragmatics of indefinite descriptions. It is often noted that indefinite descriptions may be interpreted in several ways: attributively, referentially, specifically, generically, etc. I argue that indefinite descriptions are not semantically ambiguous and that their various interpretations are better explained on the basis of general communicative principles. Assuming an unambiguous semantics, I develop a pragmatic account of the attributive, the specific and the referential interpretation, placed within the framework of relevance theory. I compare this analysis to a Gricean one and argue that the relevance theoretic account is more adequate. Finally, I show that the proposed analysis can be extended to account for the generic and the predicative interpretations as well.

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Articles
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Journal of Linguistics , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , September 1994, pp. 441 - 475
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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Footnotes

1

I would like to express my thanks to Robyn Carston, Deirdre Wilson and Neil Smith for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to two anonymous JL referees for their comments. Finally, I would like to thank the State Scholarship Foundation in Greece for financially supporting my research at UCL.

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