Constraints on Spanish NP Anaphora: The Syntactic versus the Pragmatic Domain

Abstract

Anaphoric NP use and interpretation in Spanish may be constrained by grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic factors. While syntactic and semantic constraints place restrictions on what is referentially possible or acceptable in sentences, empirical data suggest that the use and interpretation of anaphoric NPs in Spanish conversational discourse (excluding reflexives and reciprocals) adhere to two neo-Gricean principles of language use. Furthermore, analysis of naturally occurring conversations among native speakers reveals that the pattern of anaphora predicted by the neo-Gricean framework is constrained by antecedent salience, mutual knowledge, and semantic entailments. These data suggest that instances of intended coreference may be considered conversational implicatures that can be explained in terms of pragmatic rules of language use and intervening consistency constraints.