Faulty reference

One of the first things children learn are referring expressions [MAT 07]: cat, dog, mouse. Yet, the production of these forms is not a simple task, and there are various reasons for this. While the objects we talk about hardly ever change during our conversation, the linguistic means used for describing them do. In fact, they vary considerably, depending on whether we refer to an object for the first time or not: Once upon a time, there was a king named Henry.. He had three daughters. Yet, the form depends not only on the referent’s intrinsic features (gender: he/she), but also on competing elements. Imagine the scene here below, with the goal to refer to e₂.

Table 7.1. Description of the elements composing the scene

In theory, we could use any of the following six forms: (1) a minimal description and basic-level term (dog), (2) a more specific word (Doberman), (3) a relational description (the dog on the lawn), (4) the referent’s role (shepherd dog), (5) his proper noun (Fido) or (6) simply a pointer, i.e. a pronoun (it). While all these forms are correct, not all of them suit equally well the situation. The first example, using a basic level term (dog) and the definite article, fits best. Examples 5 and 6 (Fido, it) are underspecified and appropriate only under very specific circumstances: knowledge of the object’s name, object currently in focus of attention, second mention, etc. Examples 2 and 3 are overspecified, as they provide more information than needed for identifying the intended object. For more details, see [ZOC 15b].