In order to explain how speakers are able to understand them, semanticists have proposed a variety of formalisms including systems of dynamic semantics such as Discourse representation theory.
", requires careful consideration for adequate description (though reading "each" in place of "every" does simplify the formal analysis).
[8] There is nothing wrong with donkey sentences: they are grammatically correct, they are well-formed and meaningful, and their syntax is regular.
[9] It is unknown how natural language users agree – apparently effortlessly – on the meaning of sentences such as the examples.
In fact, Hans Kamp (1981) and Irene Heim (1982) independently proposed very similar accounts in different terminology, which they called discourse representation theory (DRT) and file change semantics (FCS), respectively.
[10] Description-theoretic approaches are theories of donkey pronouns in which definite descriptions play an important role.
Donkey sentences became a major force in advancing semantic research in the 1980s, with the introduction of discourse representation theory (DRT).
During that time, an effort was made to settle the inconsistencies which arose from the attempts to translate donkey sentences into first-order logic.
The solution that DRT provides for the donkey sentence problem can be roughly outlined as follows: The common semantic function of non-anaphoric noun phrases is the introduction of a new discourse referent, which is in turn available for the binding of anaphoric expressions.
Peter Geach reintroduced donkey sentences as a counterexample to Richard Montague's proposal for a generalized formal representation of quantification in natural language.
[5] His example was reused by David Lewis (1975),[17] Gareth Evans (1977)[11] and many others, and is still quoted in recent publications.