DEMONSTRATIVE NOMINAL ANAPHORS - A CASE OF NONIDENTIFICATIONAL MARKEDNESS

In this article, we present a cognitive-functional view of demonstrati ve nominal anaphors in discourse. Our proposal starts from the idea th at the demonstrative determiner in anaphoric NPs cannot be simply rega rded as a marked device enabling readers to give better or quicker acc ess to the intended discourse referent. Instead it is claimed to signa l a predicating reading of the NP involved, the effect being that the representation of the underlying discourse referent is modified. Three modifications will be described: discourse referents underlying demon strative nominal anaphors can be classified within their natural class , they can be contextualized, or additional information can be attribu ted to them. These types enable us to propose an interpretation proces s for anaphoric demonstrative NPs in discourse, based on an ordered se t of processing heuristics.