Speaker's Reference, Descriptions, and Information Structure
Paul Dekker

The notion of information developed in systems of dynamic semantics is
applied in an analysis of the referential interpretation of definite
descriptions, and the specific interpretation of indefinite ones. A Russellian
treatment of descriptions is upgraded with the dynamic semantic notion of a
discourse referent, and this enables a combination of contextually given
information with information which is properly semantic. The analysis is
sharpened by the addition of a partition of utterances into a ground and a
focus part. The two extensions suffice to account for the most important
features of situations which involve the referential use of expressions in a
both semantically and pragmatically satisfactory way. A by-product is a
rudimentary analysis of negative existential statements involving names.