The Anaphoric Potential of Weak Definites

Abstract

Weak definites (WDs) as in 'Max went to the cinema' differ from regular definites insofar as 'the cinema' does not refer to a uniquely identifiable cinema. In this paper I propose that investigating the discourse properties of WDs helps us to distinguish and decide between various theories of WDs that have been proposed. I present two experiments in German. The first shows that WDs can be referred to by pronoun but less straightforwardlly than anaphoric reference to indefinites lending support to the model initially proposed by Krifka & Modarresi (2016) for anaphoric potential of pseudo-incorporated nouns. The second experiment shows that anaphoric reference to WDs is distinct from associative anaphora, in contrast to predictions that analyze weak definites as reference to kinds.