The Cataphoric Potential of Indefinites in German
نویسندگان
چکیده
Not only do indefinite noun phrases introduce new discourse referents, they also equip them with a cataphoric (or forward-looking) potential, i.e. with a certain degree of activation which is mirrored in discourse effects such as the frequency of anaphoric references back to the referent in the subsequent discourse. Comparing the two German indefinite determiners ein ‘a(n)’ and indefinite demonstrative dieser ‘this’, we claim that the degree of the cataphoric potential of an indefinite noun phrase (i) correlates with specificity and (ii) a second parameter independent of specificity.
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