Theory Of Anaphora Research Articles

Syntactic and pragmatic theories of Chinese reflexives

This article introduces new Mandarin Chinese data on ziji ‘self’, namely it has been overlooked that ziji is able to take the collective suffix –men to form zijimen. This observation is gleaned from written material found in the mainstream Chinese news media, as well as among general Chinese websites. In evaluating this new reflexive data, there are two major theoretical traditions, syntactic and pragmatic, to consider. Assessing recent Minimalist anaphoric theories shows that there are challenges presented for these syntactic theories’ mechanisms when applied to zijimen. In the field of pragmatics however, this new form presents little challenge to the revised neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora. Moreover, this new data sheds light on the distributivity problem of ziji, leading to a new pragmatic analysis. Consequently, in spite of recent syntactic advances in anaphoric theory, the best answer to Chinese reflexive pronouns is still a pragmatic one.

Discourse anaphora in Peninsular Spanish interactions: Signalling alignment through anaphor selection

In spoken interactions in Peninsular Spanish, a degree of active collaboration is displayed by listeners which seems greater than that present in exchanges between English-speaking interlocutors. This article examines the range of strategies used by Peninsular Spanish listeners to signal engagement with the speaker through their interpretation, disambiguation, and convergent use of anaphors. While in some instances the choice of anaphor is predicted by the general pattern of anaphora, there are instances of successful anaphor resolution achieved via lack of pronominal agreement, particularly in cases of associative anaphora. Explanations of the use of full NPs in Peninsular Spanish in contexts where the general theory of anaphora would predict a reduced anaphoric form tend to rely on neo-Gricean accounts of referential markedness. However, their appearance in non-ambiguous contexts suggests that in Peninsular Spanish interactions the need to establish affiliation overrides neo-Gricean and cognitive predictions on anaphor distribution. Shifts in pronominal agreement can also reflect fluctuations in the speaker's stance, which are replicated by the listener. Anaphoric alignment is also perceived in a range of allo-repetitions whose structure, at both intra- and intersentential levels, is a signal of interactional convergence. It is argued that anaphor choice can function as an alignment-marker, overriding both grammatical constraints on agreement and markedness predictions.

Conceptual similarity effects on working memory in sentence contexts: Testing a theory of anaphora

The degree of semantic similarity between an anaphoric noun phrase (e.g., the bird) and its antecedent (e.g., a robin) is known to affect the anaphor resolution process, but the mechanisms that underlie this effect are not known. One proposal (Almor, 1999) is that semantic similarity triggers interference effects in working memory and makes two crucial assumptions: First, semantic similarity impairs working memory just as phonological similarity does (e.g., Baddeley, 1992), and, second, this impairment interferes with processes of sentence comprehension. We tested these assumptions in two experiments that compared recall accuracy between phonologically similar, semantically similar, and control words in sentence contexts. Our results do not provide support for Almor's claims: Phonological overlap decreased recall accuracy in sentence contexts, but semantic similarity did not. These results shed doubt on the idea that semantic interference in working memory is an underlying mechanism in anaphor resolution.

Topic expression, information saliency and anaphora resolution

Huang (2007/1994) proposes a pragmatic theory of anaphora within the neo-Gricean framework of conversational implicature. With regard to anaphora interpretation, he postulates an antecedent search procedure for zero anaphors, according to which the preference order in the assignment of an antecedent for a zero anaphor should be local subject > local object > matrix subject > topic. First, we point out that this pragmatic proposal is in discord with the principle of information saliency also discussed by Huang, which states that in the assignment of correct coindexing, higher clauses have precedence over lower clauses and higher potential antecedents have precedence over lower ones. Accordingly, we argue that the preference order in the assignment of an antecedent for a zero anaphor should be topic > matrix subject > local subject > local object. Second, we demonstrate that his pragmatic proposal of antecedent assignment does not fully apply to cases involving control verbs either, given that the triple of syntax, semantics and pragmatics each plays a role in natural language interpretation.

Buoyancy and Strength

The chief characteristic of presuppositio ns is that they tend to take wide scope, yet most theories of presupposition, the author's not excepted, fail to provide an explanation of this fact. Recently, however, it has been suggested that a principled explanation can be given in terms of informativeness: the idea is that presuppositions simply prefer stronger readings to weaker ones. This proposal is studied in some depth, and is shown to lack solid empirical evidence. Furthermore, it is argued that assuming a preference for strong readings is either ad hoc, when restricted to presuppositio ns, or just false, when held to apply more widely. The paper leaves the main problem very much where it is, though some suggestions are made as to how the situation might be improved. Anaphoric pronouns may be used to refer back to an object introduced in the preceding discourse, but also to refer forward to an object yet to be introduced (the latter usage is sometimes called 'kataphora' or even 'cataphora'). This may be so, but a theory of anaphora that predicts only this much is seriously incomplete, because it does not account for the fact that forward reference is the exception and backward reference the rule. A theory that does not explain this preference is not much of a theory at all. Most of the phenomena a theory of interpretation has to deal with are like this. It would be very nice if we had theory that predicted all and only possible interpretations for any expression in any context; but it would hardly count as a full-fledged theory of interpretatio n. Small wonder, therefore, that the framework of optimality theory naturally suggests itself for dealing with a wide range of problems in semantics and pragmatics. One of the problems that immediately comes to mind is that of presuppositio n projection, not only because projection phenomena seem to spring from the interaction between several forces of varying strength, but also because that is precisely how many theories of presupposition treat their subject matter. Optimality-theoretic treatments of presuppositio n have been proposed by Zeevat (1999) and Blutner (this volume), and in the following I will assume that some account along these lines is the right one. What I will be worrying about is one of the constraints postulated by Blutner and Zeevat. Thus I will follow the lead of Haspelmath (2000), who argues that optimality-theoretic analyses are often incomplete, because they fail to motivate their constraints. Haspelmath restricts his discussion to phonology and syntax, where it is still possible just to postulate a set of constraints, and get away with it, but people working in semantics and pragmatics

The role of pragmatics in reflexive interpretation by Turkish learners of English

This study investigates the effects of pragmatic principles on the acquisition of the binding of English reflexives by adult Turkish second language (L2) learners. The study compares pragmatically biased and pragmatically neutral sentences to determine whether pragmatic bias towards a non-local antecedent overrides the parameter setting of English and causes learners to choose as possible antecedents NPs outside the binding domain. Both group and individual results indicate that pragmatically biased sentences compel the subjects to consider pragmatic information to the extent that it can affect their choice of local antecedent. Acquisition theories should account for the role that pragmatic information might play in the assignment of possible antecedents for reflexives.This study incorporates Huang's (1994) ‘pragmatic theory of anaphora’ in which the interpretation of a reflexive is subject to the I-principle, a pragmatic strategy which finds an antecedent for the reflexive that gives the most informative, stereotypical interpretation in keeping with our knowledge about the world.

Champ, schéma, sujet : les contributions de Biihler, Bartlett et Benveniste à une linguistique du texte

Brigitte Nerlich et David Clarke : Champ, schéma, sujet ; les contributions de Bühler, Bartlett et Benveniste à une linguistique du texte This article is a contribution to an international and interdisciplinary history of text linguistics. It focuses on the works of three authors who have influenced text linguistics in various ways : Bühler, through his theory of four modes of language, his organon model, his theory of anaphora and deixis and his theory of language understanding influenced by Gestalt psychology ; Bartlett, through his theory of schemata or mental models that structure the understanding and memorisation of stories, a theory that had a direct influence on all later models of text comprehension based on schemata, frames, scripts and plans ; and finally Benveniste, through his theory of pronouns and indexicals and his discussion of two broad types of enunciation or genres of text : the story and the discourse.

On the theory of anaphora : Dynamic predicate logic vs. game-theoretical semantics

L'A. propose une etude critique du traitement de l'anaphore tel qu'il a ete developpe par Chiercha (1990) et par Groendijk et Stokhof (1990, 1991) dans le cadre de la logique dynamique des predicats, et le compare avec le traitement theorique des jeux developpe par Hintikka et ses collaborateurs. Il presente ainsi une description techniquement precise de la semantique des jeux, ainsi qu'une analyse detaillee de l'anaphore liee a la quantification. Il compare ensuite la semantique des jeux a la theorie des representations discursives developpee par Kamp (1993)

Response to Edwin William's Review of Indices and Identity

Our response to Edwin Williams's review of our book Indices and Identity (II before there can be meaningful debate it must be clear to both participants what the issues are. In I&I, our concern is with the nature and representation of syntactic identity. The central issue we address is a foundational one: to determine the conditions under which two syntactic inscriptions are occurrences of the same syntactic object. Any answer to this question will have implications for a broad range of topics, including, we argue, for the theory of anaphora. It is a central consequence of our approach to syntactic identity that if two syntactic representations, or inscriptions, have the same index, they are thereby indicated to be occurrences of the same syntactic expression. If two syntactic inscriptions do not have the same index, they are thereby indicated to be occurrences of different syntactic expressions. Since the identity conditions given are SYNTACTIC identity conditions, it is to be expected that two inscriptions might be syntactically identical but lexically distinct. This circumstance holds when, for example, an occurrence of Cicero and an occurrence of he have the same index. We refer to the relationship between syntactically identical but lexically distinct inscriptions as VEHICLE CHANGE. This relation is not arbitrary, and a good part of I&I is devoted to investigating the constraints on Vehicle Change. (See especially the discussion on pp. 218-27 and 275-88.) We will consider this relationship in more detail below. Our conception in I&I raises a question as to the relationship between the indication of syntactic identity and the theory of anaphora. What we hold on this point is that the representation of syntactic identity, expressed as a theory of indexing, is sufficient to express the syntactic relation of anaphora: expressions that have the same index are syntactically indicated to be anaphoric. The intuition behind this is easy to grasp: if an expression is repeated, it follows that the two occurrences have the same semantic value, in the cases at hand, its reference. If two inscriptions are coindexed, and hence repetitions in the appropriate sense, they are coreferential. On the other hand, if two inscriptions are not coindexed, whether they are coreferential or not depends on the structure of context, formally defined. The initial chapters of I&I formally develop the syntax and semantics of our treatment of anaphora, at the heart of which lies the intuition mentioned, and the theory is applied to a variety of empirical puzzles.

Unmatched chains and the representation of plural pronouns

Plural pronouns create the possibility of overlapping reference, which does not not fit naturally into the classical GB theory of anaphora, where each NP has a single integer as its referential index. Thus, one must either complicate the indexing system used in syntax or complicate the semantic interpretation of indices. This paper argues for the former approach based on the properties of a particular comitative-like construction found in Mohawk and certain other languages. This construction is analyzed as a type of Left Dislocation where the dislocated NP forms a syntactic chain with a pronoun that it overlaps in reference with. Several unusual characteristics of such chains can be accounted for if plural pronouns have sets of integers as their indices—characteristics involving bound anaphora, ellipsis interpretation, and connectivity effects. Certain implications for the theory of chains are also discussed.

Towards a Generalization of Anaphora

This paper deals with anaphoric properties of both pronominal and nonpronominal Noun Phrases within the framework of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT). A generalized notion of anaphora is advocated, in which the notion of anaphora is extended to cover relations between anaphor and antecedent other than referential identity. This paper tries to make insights gained in DRT, as well as in other theories of anaphora, applicable to a wide range of ‘new’ phenomena in the area of context dependent interpretation.

On So-Called Anaphoric To and the Theory of Anaphora in General

On So-Called Anaphoric To and the Theory of Anaphora in General