Abstract
Within natural language semantics, pronouns are often thought to correspond to variables whose values are contributed by contextual assignment functions. This paper concerns the application of this idea to cases where the antecedent of a pronoun is a plural quantifiers. The paper discusses the modelling of accessibility patterns of quantifier antecedents in a dynamic theory of interpretation. The goal is to reach a semantics of quantificational dependency which yields a fully semantic notion of pronominal accessibility. I argue that certain dependency phenomena that arise in quantificationally created contexts require a representation of context wherein the labelling of antecedents is not rigid but rather dynamic itself. I propose a stack-based alternative to classic assignment functions, along the lines of Vermeulen (1993) and van Eijck (2001), and give a dynamic semantics of quantification which correctly accommodates the problematic anaphoric phenomena.
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Nouwen, R. On Dependent Pronouns and Dynamic Semantics. J Philos Logic 36, 123–154 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-006-9029-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10992-006-9029-8