Varieties of Coreference

Abstract

Udo says, ‘‘I need a haircut.’’ Victor agrees, ‘‘Yes, you do need a haircut.’’ There is same-saying here, and same-thinking. Looking at Udo, Wally says to a friend, ‘‘he needs a haircut’’, unaware that Udo said any such thing. There’s same-saying here, too, but not the kind in the first case. In the first case, there is purposive same-saying, while in the second case, there isn’t. In the first case, we can say there is an internal relation of coreference—Udo’s utterance of ‘‘I’’ and Victor’s of ‘‘you’’ are supposed to corefer. The purposes of communication require coreference. In the second case of same-saying, there is coreference, but it is an external relation: Wally’s utterance of ‘‘he’’ is not supposed to corefer with anyone else’s utterance, although it happens to corefer with both Udo’s and Victor’s. No communicative purposes here require coreference. (Of course, Wally’s utterance is supposed to corefer with Wally’s own thoughts—so there is a second, internal, relation of coreference his utterance bears to his thought.) As it turns out, it’s a wonderful fact about language and thought that there can be both internal and external coreference relations—wonderful and difficult, because it also turns out that things can go awry. Merely external coreference relations can be present when there should be internal relations. For instance, Udo looks in a mirror and says, ‘‘He needs a haircut even more than I do!’’ not realizing that it is his own reflection he sees. Udo’s utterances corefer, and he should realize as much, but he doesn’t. On the other hand, internal coreference relations can be present when there is no external coreference between terms. For instance, speakers can get confused and make mistakes: Wally says, ‘‘He needs a haircut’’ and his friend, thinking to agree, but looking at a different scruffy person, says, ‘‘he sure does.’’