Indefinite demonstrative dieser in German

This work offers experimental support for the hypothesis that some indefinite noun phrases do not only introduce new referents but also equip them with a certain ‘forward-looking potential’ which informs the hearer about the ‘importance’ of the referent in the subsequent discourse. Developing means to empirically account for the intuitions that exist with respect to English this-indefinites, I show that German has an analog phenomenon, indefinite dieser, which, in contrast to the simple indefinite article ein, functions to mark referents which are ‘more important’ in that they show high values with respect to two parameters: referential persistence and topic shift potential.