The Salience Theory of Definiteness
The salience theory of definiteness combines the best features of the uniqueness theory and the familiarity theory to a novel concept of definiteness. A definite expression refers to the most salient element of a given set. Thus, this theory does not suff
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Abstract The salience theory of definiteness combines the best features of the uniqueness theory and the familiarity theory to a novel concept of definiteness. A definite expression refers to the most salient element of a given set. Thus, this theory does not suffer from the notoriously problematic uniqueness condition nor from the often too globally interpreted familiarity condition. The paper provides the theoretical and empirical foundations for the salience theory of definiteness and illustrates its range by successfully analyzing different uses of definite noun phrases.
1 Introduction The concept of definiteness in natural language is of special interest because it seems to be pragmatic in nature but it has semantic impact. The analysis of definite expressions exhibits some aspects of the fuzzy borderline between semantics and pragmatics and the interaction between the two areas. In this paper, I will examine four semantic theories about definiteness with particular view on English. I conclude that the pragmatic concept of ‘‘salience’’ is the underlying principle for definiteness. However, no theory has given a formal account of this pragmatic principle. I show that choice functions provide the adequate means to reconstruct salience in a formal theory. They are functions that assign to each non-empty set one of its elements. In this formal approach the pragmatic principle of salience gets its semantic reconstruction, which yields a unified account of the semantics of definite noun phrases and pronouns.
K. von Heusinger (&) Universität zu Köln, Cologne, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
A. Capone et al. (eds.), Perspectives on Linguistic Pragmatics, Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology 2, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-01014-4_14, Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2013
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The paper is organized in the following way: In the second section I introduce five different groups of definite expressions, namely proper names, definite NPs, demonstratives, personal pronouns, and possessive constructions. In the third section, I focus on definite NPs as the most complex kind of definite expressions and discuss the relevant contexts where they are used: the anaphoric linkage, the relational dependency, the situational salience, and the unique case. In the fourth section, I shortly sketch three semantic theories of definiteness. Each of the theories focuses on one of the typical contexts of definite expressions: Russell’s Theory of Descriptions focuses on uniques, Kamp and Heim’s familiarity theory takes the anaphoric use as fundamental, and Löbner’s relational approach bases definiteness on relational dependencies. However, none of these three theories gives a complete picture of all uses of definite NPs. Therefore, the more general salience approach is presented in the fourth section. In this approach, the context crucially contributes to the interpretation of the definite NP by forming a salience hierarchy among the potential referents. It is assumed that ea
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