ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses discourse profile and discourse function approaches to referring expressions in linguistic and psycholinguistic research. Focusing on English prenominal possessive noun phrases, it argues that although their discourse profile is amenable to clearly defined automatic processing or production cues, and to explaining potential grammaticizations, only their discourse functions can account for all the forms actually attested in discourse. The chapter shows that both types of accounts are linguistically relevant and proposes that psycholinguists devise experiments to test the three hypotheses outlined. These hypotheses are: discourse profiles, discourse functions, and a combination of discourse profiles and discourse functions. The chapter also argues that an appropriate account of the referring expressions occurring in possessive NPs must be in terms of their generalized or abstract discourse functions, rather than their prototypical discourse profiles. The analyses of pronouns and definite descriptions can illustrate the differences between discourse function and discourse profile accounts for referring expressions.
