Towards a computational semantics for demonstrative anaphors

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000267 EndHTML:0000003569 StartFragment:0000002583 EndFragment:0000003533 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/raquelpalopbenlloch/Documents/PAPERS/CONFERENCIAS%202008-2009/PAPER%20PROJECT%20Linguam%C3%A1tica/Paper%20Linguam%C3%A1tica.doc <p>Demonstratives exhibit a dual nature with respect to their discourse behavior. On the one hand, they behave as directly referential elements commonly accompanied by a pointing gesture in their canonical use. On the other hand, speakers make use of demonstratives to refer to a range of entities that have been previously mentioned in discourse (discourse anaphora), such as events, propositions or any other type of abstract entities apparently lacking any kind of spatio-temporal anchoring. In this paper, we propose a characterization of Spanish demonstrative determiners and pronouns as generalized quantifiers, which will allow us to account for their heterogeneous referential nature and the principal differences among these elements.</p> <!--EndFragment--