Publications
Publication details [#45628]
Heusinger, Klaus von. 2007. Accessibility and definite noun phrases. In Schwarz-Friesel, Monika, Manfred Consten and Mareile Knees, eds. Anaphors in Text. Cognitive, formal and applied approaches to anaphoric reference. (Studies in Language Companion Series 86). John Benjamins. pp. 123–144.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Annotation
Accessibility is a dynamic discourse structure that is the sum of the salience structure of particular referential expressions. On the one hand, accessibility is continuously updated by referential expressions, while on the other, it determines the reference of definite expression. In this paper, it is shown that not only indefinite noun phrases, but also definite noun phrases update the accessibility structure of a discourse by promoting the actual referent to the most salient of its kind and some supersets. This dynamic potential of definite noun phrases establishes text coherence by means of salience spreading.