Discourse focus and conceptual relations in resolving referential ambiguity

The study discusses the cognitive aspects of discourse focus verbal descrip tions, and conceptual relations in resolving referential ambiguity. In thre e experiments, subjects were presented with pictorial and verbal materials that constituted a referentially ambiguous sitlmtion. The focus built up du ring preceding tasks determined the selection of a referent in a critical r eference task. Judgments of task difficulty, as well as the speed of refere nt identification, did depend on the type of verbal description used (defin ite vs, indefinite) and on the degree of denotative aptness. The findings s uggest tiratfocusing and the establishment of semantic relations are integr al parts of cognitive activity in the resolution of ambiguous reference.