In the tradition of centering theory, many studies have shown a significant sensitivity of anaphoric pronouns to refer to focus entities in a discourse representation. This sensitivity would be absent with more explicit expressions like the repeated nouns. According to the principles of this theory, we present an experiment aiming at studying the function of the referential identification of a hybrid expression: the demonstrative pronoun celui-ci. The results indicate that the use of this expression is strongly constrained by the entities of focalization and it would be motivated to establish the center of attention on a mild focus entity. These results are discussed in the light of centering theory.
Centering theory; anaphoric resolution; discourse focus; demonstrative pronoun
