Differences in use among referring expressions are usually explained on the basis of the cognitive accessibility of their antecedents, where antecedent accessibility has been operationalized differently in the literature; i.e. as a grammatical role, as syntactic prominence or as antecedent distance. On these grounds, it has been proposed that personal pronouns prefer topical antecedents whereas demonstratives prefer non-topical antecedents. This paper investigates the referring properties of Spanish demonstratives and direct object personal pronouns with the aim to unveil their differences and similarities. My analysis shows that these two expressions are very similar referentially when a narrow view of discourse context is considered. However, important differences show up when a broader notion of context is thrown into the picture; i.e. contexts that extend beyond the immediate previous sentence and beyond the immediate local topic of discourse. Based on my corpus evidence and on previous research on the pragmatic interpretation of referring expressions, I claim that direct object personal pronouns and demonstrative noun phrases crucially differ in the way they contribute to discourse coherence; the former playing the role of topic continuity markers and the latter focalising referents that reintroduce suspended or declining topics and marking (sub)-topic shifts in the discourse.

中文翻译：

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西班牙话语中的话题连续性和话题转移效应

通常根据指称表达的先例的认知可及性来解释指称表达在用法上的差异，其中先例可及性在文献中的操作方式有所不同。即作为语法角色，作为句法突显或作为先行距离。基于这些理由，已经提出人称代词更喜欢局部用语，而指示词更喜欢非局部用语。本文研究了西班牙指示词和直接宾语人称代词的指称性质，旨在揭示它们的异同。我的分析表明，当考虑话语上下文的狭义视角时，这两个表达在参考上非常相似。但是，当将更广泛的上下文概念引入画面时，就会显示出重要的差异。IE 上下文超出了前面的直接句子，也超出了直接的本地话语话题。基于我的语料库证据和先前对指称表达的语用解释的研究，我认为直接宾语人称代词和指示性名词短语在促成语篇连贯的方式上存在重大差异。前者扮演主题连续性标记的角色，而后者则聚焦于被指对象，从而重新引入被暂停或下降的主题并标记话语中的（子）主题转移。我认为直接宾语的人称代词和指示性名词短语在促成语篇连贯的方式上存在重大差异。前者扮演主题连续性标记的角色，而后者则聚焦于被指对象，从而重新引入被暂停或下降的主题并标记话语中的（子）主题转移。我认为直接宾语的人称代词和指示性名词短语在促成语篇连贯的方式上存在重大差异。前者扮演主题连续性标记的角色，而后者则聚焦于被指对象，从而重新引入被暂停或下降的主题并标记话语中的（子）主题转移。