Abstract
There has been a long debate on whether demonstratives are directly referential as Kaplan originally argued, or indirectly referential like a definite description. I propose a new analysis of demonstratives that combines intuitions from both direct and indirect approaches. The demonstrative is analyzed as an indirectly referential expression with a binary maximality operator that takes two arguments, where the second argument can be a deictic pointing, an anaphoric index, or a relative clause. Direct reference is encoded not in the meaning of the demonstrative but in the meaning contributed by the pointing gesture, thus capturing both direct and indirect uses. I further propose that some pronouns in English function as demonstratives, realizing the binary structure and competing with the demonstrative. The main advantages of this proposal include (a) deriving the distribution of pronominal and adnominal demonstratives systematically; (b) capturing the unique interaction that demonstratives have with a pointing gesture; and (c) locating English demonstratives against a larger, cross-linguistic picture.
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Notes
As an anonymous reviewer noted, Kaplan has also argued in other works that speaker’s intentions should also play a role in determining the referent of a demonstrative. In this paper, I do not provide a formal analysis of incorporating speaker intention but assume that speaker intention is always considered when reference to an individual is made, regardless of the referential expression (pronoun, definite, demonstrative, etc.) and the mechanism (anaphoric vs. deictic).
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I thank Gennaro Chierchia, Uli Sauerland, Kate Davidson, Jesse Snedeker, Andreea Nicolae, Michael Glanzberg, Beatrice Santorini, Florian Schwarz, and Kyle Blumberg for helpful discussions and advice. All errors are mine.
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Ahn, D. Indirectly direct: An account of demonstratives and pointing. Linguist and Philos 45, 1345–1393 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-022-09350-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-022-09350-5