The Norwegian type-anaphor det

This paper gives a description of the Norwegian type anaphor det ('that') and proposes a formal representation of it in the HPSG framework. This identity-of-sense anaphor is interpreted as referring to a (new) set of entities of the same type as its antecedent. Its antecedent has to be either indefinite or a definite NP that is likely to introduce a brand new discourse referent. Whereas the type anaphor is neuter and singular w.r.t. sentence-internal agreement, it is lexically underspecified for agreement features that are relevant for sentence-external phenomena, and rather shares values for person, number, and gender with its antecedent. Furthermore, the type anaphor det only appears in positions where indefinite determinerless phrases are licensed. In addition, its distribution is sensitive to discourse related restrictions common to anaphora in general. This complexity of restrictions makes HPSG a suitable formal framework, as it is a theory that concerns all linguistic aspects of a sign. But also in HPSG the type anaphor det represents a challenge. The main problem is that it shares with its antecedent the relations that the antecedent introduces, but not the index. This is hard to express in a satisfying way in standard HPSG.