1 Introduction

This book is about particular types of indefinite noun phrases that give structure to the discourse in terms of predictive expectations. Indefinite noun phrases are nominal expressions with a descriptive part and a special determiner form in those languages that have developed one. Typical examples of English indefinite noun phrases include, but are not limited to: a man, this man, several men, a certain man, some men, cardinals, the zero of bare plurals, partitives, and, according to some analyses, noun phrases headed by the morpheme any (Horn 1999, among others).

In the discussions starting with early work in the philosophical oriented tradition (Frege 1892, Russel 1905) and continuing with more recent, linguistic oriented proposals (Fodor and Sag 1982, Farkas 1994, 2002, Kamp and Bende-Farkas 2006), the question about the properties, uses, and function(s) of indefinite noun phrases has been answered in several ways. From a semantic point of view, one of the most basic properties that indefinite noun phrases share is existential quantification, which can be paraphrased as "there exists" or "there is at least one". That means that the predicate within the scope of existential quantifiers is true for at least one value of the predicate variable. Consider the clause in (1), which describes a simple transitive event and in which the indefinite noun phrases a dog and some dog have existential force. This entails that the sentence is true if at least one entity is a dog and is in the garden.

(1)

A dog/ some dog is in the garden.

In addition to asserting existential generalization, indefinite noun phrases display another characteristic that pertains to structuring the information in a paragraph, rather than to the truth conditions of a clause. The so-called Novelty Condition captures the property of indefinite noun phrases to introduce new and unfamiliar entities in the discourse (Kamp 1981, Heim 1982, among others). With respect to this property, indefinite noun phrases behave differently compared to other types of referring expressions (e.g. definite noun phrases), which are used to refer back to entities that have been previously introduced in the discourse and refer to discourse-old entities.

Besides existential quantification and novelty of reference, the notion of specificity has played a crucial role in the analysis of indefinite noun phrases as well (Fillmore 1967, Karttunen 1969, Partee 1970, Kripke 1977, Ludlow and Neale 1991, Kamp 1981, Farkas 2002, von Heusinger 2002, 2011). In pre-theoretical terms, a speaker uses a specific indefinite noun phrase as an expression of his intention to refer to a particular referent he "has in mind". Specificity does not describe particular aspects that apply to all indefinite noun phrases in a unitary way, but rather distinguishes between a variety of uses and readings of indefinite noun phrases. Given the notoriety of the notion of specificity in the discussions involving indefinite noun phrases, it is not surprising that it is employed in investigations of different phenomena cross-linguistically (Enç 1991, Farkas 2002, von Heusinger 2011).

Another line of research has analysed different types of referring expressions in terms of activation and accessibility. The starting point for such investigations is the observation that human communication is not an arbitrary exchange between different speakers in the sense that interlocutors do not randomly switch between different types of referring expressions during the process of referring. Rather, referring expressions are used to introduce and continue reference to particular entities with certain referential properties, but also with particular discourse properties. According to this view, each type of referring expression is associated with one particular referent, which is selected from a list of discourse referents that are ranked with respect to their activation or accessibility. The general assumption is that there is an inverse relation between the explicitness of the anaphoric expression (in terms of descriptive, lexical, and phonological material) and the accessibility or prominence of the antecedent expression. Reduced types of referring expression most often correlate with accessible referents, while the opposite holds for more explicit types of referring expressions. For example, it was shown that a referring expression is likely to be associated with an accessible antecedent, if it is realized as a phonologically reduced form. The personal pronoun er ('he') in the second sentence of (2a) is more readily interpreted as coreferring with the subject ein Student ('a student') than with the object einen Professor ('a professor'), even though both interpretations are felicitous. In contrast, the demonstrative pronoun der ('this') in (2b) cannot be linked to the subject or topic of the sentence, but, instead, can only be co-indexed with the second referent introduced, einen Professor ('a professor') (Bosch, Katz and Umbach 2007, Kaiser and Trueswell 2008).

(2)

(a)

Ein Student1 begrüßt einen Professor2. Er1>2 sagt.

a student greets a professor. He says.

(b)

Ein Student1 begrüßt einen Professor2. Der*1, 2 sagt.

a student greets a professor. DemPron says.

'A student greets a professor. He says [.].'

The use of a particular type of referring expression depends upon the accessibility of its associated referent, which is in turn computed based on the status retained by this referent in the immediately preceding discourse. As indefinite noun phrases generally do not have a discourse history as they do not refer back to an antecedent, they have been either left unaccounted for, or they have been associated with referents ranked lowest in accessibility or activation (Gundel, Hedberg & Zacharski 1993, Ariel 2001).

This book takes a different perspective on the analysis of indefinite noun phrases by investigating their function within larger discourse units. I argue that despite being associated with locally non-accessible referents, indefinite noun phrases fulfil different functions that become visible in larger discourse units. In a communication model that assumes cooperative discourse participants, speakers use particular indefinite noun phrases to indicate their referential intention and to instruct hearers to establish a permanent discourse representation for the referents associated with those indefinite noun phrases. In addition to these requirements, the newly introduced referents differ with respect to their potential to give structure to the subsequent discourse. The discourse structuring potential captures the relation between the type of indefinite expression used and the function the referent associated with this indefinite noun phrase will play in the upcoming discourse. This book provides empirical evidence from English, German and Romanian to sustain these claims. Moreover, I will propose two measures for the discourse structuring potential of indefinite noun phrases, which can be observed as the discourse unfolds. The two measures are: the likelihood of subsequent mention and the topic shift potential of a referent.

An account of indefinite noun phrases that integrates the role played by their associated referents in the ensuing discourse was advanced for English indefinite noun phrases headed by the simple indefinite article a/an and indefinite this, as illustrated in (3). The difference between the two indefinite noun phrase forms is that the latter not only introduces discourse and hearer-new referents, but also indicates the referential intention of the speaker to elaborate upon this referent (Perlman 1969, Prince 1981, Maclaran 1982, Wald 1983, Wright and Givón 1987, Gernsbacher and Shroyer 1989). As the expectation about the elaboration of the referent introduced by indefinite this remains unfulfilled in (3a), compared to (3b), the sentence containing this expression is rendered infelicitous. On the contrary, the simple indefinite article a/an is neutral with respect to this expectation (i.e. it does not require its referent to be further elaborated upon), which is mirrored in its acceptance in both sentences (3a) and (3b).

(3)

(a)

Becky wrote some thank-you notes using {a/ #this} purple pen; then she mailed the notes to her friends.

(b)

Becky wrote some thank-you notes using {a/ this} purple pen, which suddenly exploded, spilling purple ink all over Becky's clothes and furniture! (Ionin 2006: 181)

Indefinite this has been considered an exception found in English and few other languages, but broadening our perspective and looking beyond this language will bring new insights. The present book brings empirical evidence for the observation that English is not the only language in which different types of indefinite noun phrases vary with respect to their preference for particular semantic readings and simultaneously with respect to their...