Who was on the telephone?

[Luuk Lagerwerf]

Date sent:      	Wed, 20 Jan 1999 13:52:47 +0100
Send reply to:  	The Discourse Studies List <DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU>
From:           	Holger Schauer <schauer at coling.uni-freiburg.de>
Subject:        	Re: intro
To:             	DISCOURS at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU

> >>>>"LL" == Luuk Lagerwerf schrieb am Tue, 19 Jan 1999 10:04:16 +0100:
>
>  LL> Hi Larry,
>  >> A: Who was that on the telephone?
>  >>    B1: Mary.
>  >>    B2: That was Mary
>  >>    B3: ?It was Mary who called.
>  >>    B4: ??Mary was on the telephone.
>

> > or the other. The question is presupposing that the person LL>
> > calling is  known to the speaker.
>
> speaker = A ?
I'm sorry, I expressed myself wrongly here. Speaker introduces with
the question a person (identity unknown, but still introduced as a
variable discourse referent) that was on the telephone.

In B's reply, the introduced discourse referent can be identified as
Mary (or another person, for that matter), but B cannot introduce a
new discourse referent, later to be unified with the discourse
referent introduced by A.

> Re-introducing that person as a discourse referent would be
>  LL> confusing.
>
> I don't think that this is correct. Mary as a discourse referent _is_
> introduced (mentioned) _first_ in the B sentences. Mary happens to be the
> answer B is giving to the question, leaving to A to somehow "assign" Mary
> to "the one just having called" (this view is somewhat oversimplified - in
> essence, A believes that he will know the caller, i.e. he has a set of
> possible assignments for the discourse referent he is opening. Then the
> answer by B rules out any other candidates than Mary).

> I agree, however, because of a different argument: it is the
> re-iteration of the "calling event" that is confusing.
I think that this remark is close to what I wanted to say.

Luuk.

Luuk Lagerwerf
Language and Communication
University of Twente
+31 53 489 35 67 (office)
+31 34 351 38 81 (home)