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The ability to produce and understand referring expressions is
basic to human language use and human cognition. Reference
comprises the ability to think of and represent objects (both real
and imagined/fictional), to indicate to others which of these
objects we are talking about, and to determine what others are
talking about when they use a nominal expression.
The articles in this volume are concerned with some of the central
themes and challenges in research on reference within the cognitive
sciences - philosophy (including philosophy of language and mind,
logic, and formal semantics), theoretical and computational
linguistics, and cognitive psychology. The papers address four
basic questions: What is reference? What is the appropriate
analysis of different referring forms, such as definite
descriptions? How is reference resolved? and How do speaker/writers
select appropriate referring forms, such as pronouns vs. full noun
phrases, demonstrative vs. personal pronouns, and overt vs.
null/zero pronominal forms? Some of the papers assume and build on
existing theories, such as Centering Theory and the Givenness
Hierarchy framework; others propose their own models of reference
understanding or production.
The essays examine reference from a number of disciplinary and
interdisciplinary perspectives, informed by different research
traditions and employing different methodologies. While the
contributors to the volume were primarily trained in one of the
four represented disciplines-computer science, linguistics,
philosophy and psychology, and use methodologies typical of that
discipline, each of them bridges more than one discipline in their
methodology and/or their approach.
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