It is common for placenames to reference other named entities (e.g. names of people, names of organizations, etc.) and to be used as vocabulary words (e.g. city of Split). Apart from reference ambiguity, placenames are faced with the problem of referent ambiguity (i.e., a placename referring to multiple places). Many places are also referred to by multiple names (e.g. Netherlands vs. Holland). ...

First word learning should be difficult because any pairing of a word and scene presents the learner with an infinite number of possible referents. Accordingly, theorists of children’s rapid word learning have sought constraints on word-referent mappings. These constraints are thought to work by enabling learners to resolve the ambiguity inherent in any labeled scene to determine the speaker’s ...

3. One may need to make the replaced entity available as a referent. Metonymies such as the infamous "ham sandwich" example allow anaphora to the replaced referent: "The ham sandwich wants a cup of coffee. He also needs a new fork". The metonymy may in fact result in a full-fledged use of the referent, entering the entity into the "given" register; examples such as "I drive a Volvo, but the eng...

First word learning should be difficult because any pairing of a word and scene presents the learner with an infinite number of possible referents. Accordingly, theorists of children's rapid word learning have sought constraints on word-referent mappings. These constraints are thought to work by enabling learners to resolve the ambiguity inherent in any labeled scene to determine the speaker's ...

It is common for placenames to reference other named entities (e.g., names of people, names of organizations, etc.) and to be used as vocabulary words (e.g., city of Split). Apart from reference ambiguity, placenames are faced with the problem of referent ambiguity (i.e., a placename referring to multiple places). Many places are also referred to by multiple names (e.g., Netherlands vs. Holland...

The paper presents evidence that speakers often attempt to get hearers to identify referents as a separate step in the speaker's plan. Many of the communicative acts performed in service of such referent identification steps can be analyzed by extending a plan-based theory of communication for task-oriented dialogues to include an action representing a hearer's identifying the referent of a des...