ABSTRACT
Variant of discourse semantics developed by H.Kamp which first assigns so-called discourse representation structures (DRS) to simple discourse (namely sequences of declarative sentences) and then assigns truth conditions to them. Often abbreviated as DRT, its central notion is that of ‘discourse referents,’ a type of place-holders for objects to which the various text predications-even those in different sentences (text anaphora)—refer and which are, in the default case, treated as existence-quantifying variables in truth conditions. The scope òf a discourse referent is depicted graphically by a box. While Kamp was formulating his theory, I.Heim independently developed a similar type of discourse semantics in her ‘file change semantics.’
