Reference and Introduction

-in connection with Discourse Anaphora whose Antecedents Are Indefinite Descriptions

Abstract

    In this paper, I try to characterize reference and introduction as two distinct modes of making de re statements. Roughly speaking, introduction differs from reference in that an introducing utterance makes its hearer to get to know some new particular. In cases of discourse anaphora whose antecedents are indefinite descriptions, pronouns seem to have a characteristic feature, which I shall call “inheritance requirement,” that they must be interpreted as bearing, if any, the same particulars introduced by their antecedents. And I give a brief remark on how this feature relates to two semantics purposed to handle discourse anaphora, namely Discourse Representation Theory and E-type Pronoun Theory.