Introduction

reference and the semantics of anaphora

Klaus Von Heusinger

Urs Egli

pp. 1-13

in: Klaus Von Heusinger, Urs Egli (eds), Reference and anaphoric relations, Berlin, Springer, 2000

Abstract

An investigation of reference and anaphoric relations is of central interest to the understanding of the structure of linguistic meaning in its truth-conditional aspects. The truth-conditional tradition in semantics has its roots in the works of logicians and philosophers of language who investigated the relation between language on the one hand, and the objects that are associated with the linguistic expressions on the other hand. In this tradition, reference, truth-conditions, and inferences are the basic data which a semantic theory must correctly describe to meet even the most minimal standards of adequacy.