Cognitive Status and the Form of Referring Expressions in Discourse

Abstract

In this paper we propose six implicationally related cognitive statuses relevant for explicating the use of referring expressions in natural language discourse. These statuses are the conventional meanings signalled by determiners and pronouns, and interaction of the statuses with Grice's Maxim of Quantity accounts for the actual distribution and interpretation of forms when necessary conditions for the use of more than one form are met. This proposal is supported by an empirical study of the distribution of referring expressions in naturally occurring discourse in five languages—English, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Spanish.