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Linguistics and Philosophy

, Volume 40, Issue 5, pp 519–547 | Cite as

Discourse and logical form: pronouns, attention and coherence

  • Una Stojnić
  • Matthew Stone
  • Ernie LeporeEmail author
Original Research
First Online:

Abstract

Traditionally, pronouns are treated as ambiguous between bound and demonstrative uses. Bound uses are non-referential and function as bound variables, and demonstrative uses are referential and take as a semantic value their referent, an object picked out jointly by linguistic meaning and a further cue—an accompanying demonstration, an appropriate and adequately transparent speaker’s intention, or both. In this paper, we challenge tradition and argue that both demonstrative and bound pronouns are dependent on, and co-vary with, antecedent expressions. Moreover, the semantic value of a pronoun is never determined, even partly, by extra-linguistic cues; it is fixed, invariably and unambiguously, by features of its context of use governed entirely by linguistic rules. We exploit the mechanisms of Centering and Coherence theories to develop a precise and general meta-semantics for pronouns, according to which the semantic value of a pronoun is determined by what is at the center of attention in a coherent discourse. Since the notions of attention and coherence are, we argue, governed by linguistic rules, we can give a uniform analysis of pronoun resolution that covers bound, demonstrative, and even discourse bound (“E-type”) readings. Just as the semantic value of the first-person pronoun ‘I’ is conventionally set by a particular feature of its context of use—namely, the speaker—so too, we will argue, the semantic values of other pronouns, including ‘he’, are conventionally set by particular features of the context of use.

Keywords

Pronouns Logical form Intentionalism Convention Attention Coherence Discourse 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PhilosophyNYUNew YorkUSA
  2. 2.Department of PhilosophyColumbia UniversityNew YorkUSA
  3. 3.Department of Computer Science and Center for Cognitive ScienceRutgers UniversityNew BrunswickUSA
  4. 4.Department of Philosophy and Center for Cognitive ScienceRutgers UniversityNew BrunswickUSA

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