Renata Vieira

This paper presents the results of a corpus study which reveals the frequency of restrictive post-modification on definite descriptions in English language texts (newspaper articles). It shows that restricted descriptions are usually first mention uses (nonanaphoric) and that these can be systematically identified. The paper then compares features of restricted descriptions with bridging references, with respect to the relation existing between triggers/anchors and their associates. 1 Different uses of definite descriptions The use of definite descriptions (DDs) occurring in written texts that is most commonly discussed in the literature is the case in which a definite description picks up a referent introduced in a previous discourse. Less attention is devoted to definites whose interpretation depends on knowledge about the existence of certain referents, such as the cricket World Cup finals. Even more neglected are DDs which in fact introduce a novel referent to the discourse on th..