In this paper, we present two experimental studies on reference of complex demonstratives. The results of our experiments challenge the dominant view in philosophy of language, according to which demonstrative reference is determined by the speaker's intentions. The first experiment shows that in a context where there are two candidates for the referent—one determined by the speaker’s intention, the other by some “external” factors—people prefer to identify the referent of a demonstrative with the latter object. The external factors for which this prediction has been confirmed include the speaker’s demonstration and the descriptive content of a demonstrative. The second experiment shows that while this preference can be explained in terms of the speakers’ having different sorts of referential intentions, the relevant kind of intentions are fully opaque to the subjects. At the end of our paper, we point to some alternative accounts of demonstrative reference, including a pluralistic and hybrid approach, which can accommodate our experimental results.

在本文中，我们提出了两个关于复杂指示词参考的实验研究。我们的实验结果挑战了语言哲学中的主导观点，根据这种观点，指示性指称由说话者的意图决定。第一个实验表明，在指称对象有两个候选对象的上下文中——一个由说话者的意图决定，另一个由一些“外部”因素决定——人们更喜欢将指示对象的所指对象与后一个对象识别。证实这一预测的外部因素包括演讲者的示范和示范的描述内容。第二个实验表明，虽然这种偏好可以用说话者具有不同类型的指称意图来解释，相关类型的意图对主题完全不透明。在我们论文的最后，我们指出了一些说明性参考的替代解释，包括多元和混合的方法，它可以适应我们的实验结果。