The does not encode an anaphoric index: Evidence from kind uses

Abstract

Two types of semantic theories concerning referring uses of the English definite article the have historically held sway: (i) uniqueness theories, where the is taken to uniquely describe a referent within some contextually restricted domain, and (ii) familiarity theories, where the picks out a previously mentioned referent. Here, we focus on an observation made in Reed (2024) on the anaphoric potential of the definite article in kind-denoting contexts: namely, that it is limited when compared to occurrences of the in anaphoric individual-denoting contexts as well as to occurrences of other referring expressions (e.g., that) in anaphoric kind-denoting contexts. Based on these data, we argue for an analysis of the definite article that makes crucial use of domain restriction rather than anaphoric indices.