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Intentions, Gestures, and Salience in Ordinary and Deferred Demonstrative Reference
Author(s) -
MOUNT ALLYSON
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00335.x
Subject(s) - ostensive definition , demonstrative , gesture , salience (neuroscience) , salient , object (grammar) , psychology , focus (optics) , reference frame , linguistics , communication , cognitive psychology , computer science , frame (networking) , philosophy , artificial intelligence , telecommunications , physics , optics
In debates about the proper analysis of demonstrative expressions, ostensive gestures and speaker intentions are often seen as competing for primary importance in securing reference. Underlying some of these debates is the mistaken assumption that ostensive gestures always make the demonstrated object maximally salient to interlocutors. When we abandon this assumption and focus on an object’s mutually‐recognized salience itself, rather than on how the object came to be salient, we can work towards a more promising analysis with a uniform treatment of demonstrative reference whether or not there is an ostensive gesture, and whether reference is ordinary or deferred.