Descriptional Anaphora In Discourse Representation Theory

Standard Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) was designed mainly to explain the so-called donkey-sentences. The pronouns playing such a prominent role in all these sentences belong, however, exclusively to one (particularly simple) type of pronoun. We try to extend DRT in order to cover an equally important type of pronoun, the so-called "descriptional" pronoun. Discourse referents are now used to carry information on the intension of their referents as well as on the extension. This allows, at the same time, to suggest accessibility rules for pronouns which are more appropriate than those suggested by traditional DRT. These new rules are based on the genericness of the sentences involved.