Anaphoric Reference
Anaphoric reference is a linguistic phenomenon where a word or phrase refers back to a previously mentioned word or phrase. It is used to avoid repetition and maintain coherence in discourse. Anaphoric references are common in many languages and play a crucial role in understanding and interpreting written and spoken communication.
6 Key excerpts on "Anaphoric Reference"
- Yorick Wilks, Yorick Wilks(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...Dahl (1987) discusses several more complex situations in which the use of an indefinite noun phrase is not permitted to introduce new individuals. Constraints from Discourse A particularly interesting set of referring expressions is those that also have anaphoric connection to the preceding discourse. Not all anaphoric expressions are referring expressions. For example, in the sentence " No Al researcher will admit that he is wrong." neither the pronoun "he" nor its antecedent is a referring expression. However, pronouns and anaphoric definite noun phrases are frequently referring expressions. Because pronouns must refer anaphorically (or to some very salient object in the context), the identification constraints that apply to a pronominal referring expression are simple to state: The active individuating set must contain a term from the individuating set intended by a previous reference to the same individual, with gender and number providing additional constraints on the possible referent. It is not so simple, however, to state how the satisfaction of the anaphoric identification request takes place. Much research in recent years has been devoted to this problem, including (to mention only a few instances) recent work on discourse context and centering by Grosz, Joshi, Sidner, and Weinstein (Grosz et al., 1983, Grosz and Sidner, 1985), and Webber (Webber, 1978; Webber, 1987). It is far beyond the scope of this paper to discuss this work, or to add anything to it. The reader should bear in mind that the principles of centering and the construction of discourse models, event/situation structures, etc. are all mutually known to the speaker and hearer in a dialogue...
eBook - ePubIntroduction to Psycholinguistics
Understanding Language Science
- Matthew J. Traxler(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...We use explicit proper name anaphors to pick out either very weakly activated antecedents or to select from among a set of more than one highly activated antecedents. If we use an explicit form when there is only one highly activated possible referent, the listener might wonder why we are providing more information than required (a violation of the Gricean maxim of quantity). Alternatively, the listener may assume that the repeated name refers to a new discourse entity and therefore take extra time to set up a new token for that new entity. Further, because the new and old tokens have the same name (e.g., Steve), the listener will have difficulty keeping the two representations separate (leading to similarity based interference, e.g., Gordon, Hendrick, & Johnson, 2001). Binding Theory The relative positions of referents and anaphors in a syntactic structure interact with specific anaphor forms to determine whether an anaphor can refer to a specific previously introduced entity. One linguistic theory that seeks to explain how different kinds of anaphors can refer to particular antecedents in particular syntactic positions is binding theory (Chomsky, 1981, 1986; see Gordon & Hendrick, 1997, 1998 for very readable descriptions of the theory). Chomsky divides anaphors into three categories, which correspond to regular pronouns such as he, she, him, and her, reflexive pronouns such as himself and herself, and R-expressions, which include proper names. He suggests that different types of anaphors 12 are in complementary distribution, where distribution is defined across syntactic positions in sentences. For example, reflexive pronouns like himself and herself must pick out an antecedent that is in the same clause of the sentence...
eBook - ePub- Betty J. Birner(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...4 Reference One of the most prominent issues in the field of pragmatics is that of reference – the question of what it is that a speaker is speaking of when they use an expression that, broadly speaking, picks out some entity. This issue comprises a vast number of sub-issues concerning referents within various possible worlds, mentalist vs. referential perspectives (see Chapter 1 and below), the meaning of definiteness and indefiniteness, how interlocutors establish coreference between two noun phrases (NPs), and more. Many of these issues straddle the fields of linguistics and philosophy, and several of the fundamental philosophical issues we addressed in Chapter 1 concerning possible worlds, mutual knowledge, and discourse models will arise again here. In this chapter we will begin by examining the nature of referring expressions and revisiting some of the above-mentioned issues that we touched on in Chapter 1. We will then move to deixis – the “pointing” function of many referring expressions such as that and tomorrow – and its uses, examining the four major types of deixis, in which expressions are used as pointers to the spatial, temporal, personal, or discourse context. We will discuss the difficult and unresolved problem of definiteness, focusing on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two leading approaches to definiteness, the familiarity-based and uniqueness-based accounts. We will then move to anaphora – the use of expressions that co-refer to situationally or textually evoked elements – distinguishing between deictic and anaphoric uses of demonstrative expressions and discussing the problem of pronoun resolution and its interacting syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects...
eBook - ePub- Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...Consider these (reconstructed) words said by a tutor at the end of a lecture in the UK: [2.15] That ’s the end. But don’t rush off just yet. As I said at the beginning, I have some announcements. Here they are. [Then displays and reads announcements on a Powerpoint slide] That points back to the preceding discourse (i.e. the lecture); here points to upcoming discourse. Given that we are now dealing with textual links, this category of deixis is not so pure. It also overlaps with the notion of anaphora, which we will discuss in the following section, though it is in principle distinguishable on some counts, as we will note. 2.4 Anaphora Anaphoric expressions refer to a previously expressed textual unit or meaning, the so-called antecedent. Anaphora, in the context of linguistics, is generally understood to refer to “a relation between two linguistic elements, wherein the interpretation of one (called an anaphor) is in some way determined by the interpretation of the other (called an antecedent)” (Huang 2000: 1). It may be helpful to know that the term anaphora is derived from the Greek word αναφορα, meaning “carrying back”. Here is an example: [2.16] A: Should Michael peel the potatoes on the board? B: Yes, he can do them there. The anaphoric expressions in B’s utterance and their antecedents are as follows: he (Michael), do (peel), them (the potatoes) and there (on the board). The fact that both the anaphoric expressions and their antecedents refer to the same entities – they are co-referential – is a characteristic of many anaphora, but not of deixis. This is not to say that there is no overlap with deixis. Readers will have noted that the form there is also used as a deictic expression. Indeed, in B’s utterance one could imagine a scenario in which there is used not only to refer back to on the board but to pick out deictically the particular board to be used (the speaker could simultaneously point)...
- Jan McAllister, James E. Miller(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Crucial to the interpretation of deictic words and phrases are the location of the speaker relative to some other entity, whether the entity is the speaker, the addressee or a third person, and the moment at which the speaker is speaking. Deictic items can be used to signal perceived proximity or remoteness with respect to time, the place of an entity in a narrative, social relations and the speaker's attitude. Reference has to do with the use of noun phrases/referring expressions to draw the attention of listeners or readers to some entity or entities. It is an act, whereas denotation has to do with the information carried by lexical items. Speakers and writers can refer to entities that are given, that is have already been mentioned or are prominent in the immediate context or in the culture shared by speaker or writer and the addressee. Reference may be to entities that are new, that is have not been mentioned or that cannot, in the judgment of the speaker, be (easily) picked up by the addressee. Given entities are specific; new entities may be specific or non-specific. Philosophers focus on whether referring expressions are correct but in ordinary language use many instances of referring are successful without being correct. The interpretation of both deictics and definite noun phrases may involve bridging. The addressee builds a bridge from an apparent deictic target or referent to the intended target or referent, making use of frames of information about some area of a given culture or world. Exercises using clinical resources 11.6. In Section 11.3.2 we noted that it can be challenging to process the ‘shifting deixis’ associated with direct speech in narrative. Consider the Recalling Sentences in Context subtest of the CELF-Preschool, and look at the items that include direct speech (i.e. words in inverted commas). In which items could shifting deixis be an issue? 11.7. The following resources involve the clinician asking questions of the client...
eBook - ePub- Johan Van Der Auwera, Johan Van Der Auwera(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...(1969), ‘An Interpretive Theory of Pronominal Reference’, Foundations of Language 5, pp. 488–519 Guenther, F. and Schmidt, S.J. (eds.) (1979), Formal Semantics and Pragmatics for Natural Languages, Reidel, Dordrecht Halle, M., Bresnan, J. and Miller, G.A. (eds.) (1978), Linguistic Theory and Psychological Reality, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Hawkins, J.A. (1978), Definiteness and Indefiniteness; a Study in Reference and Grammaticality Prediction, Croom Helm, London Hust, J.R., and Brame, M.K. (1976), ‘Jackendoff on Interpretive Semantics: a Review of Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar by R. Jackendoff’, Linguistic Analysis 2, pp. 243–77 Karttunen, L. (1968), What Make Definite Noun Phrases Definite?, Santa Monica, Cal. (unpublished) Lasnik, H. (1976), ‘Remarks on Conference’, Linguistic Analysis 2, pp. 1–22 Maratsos, M. (1971), ‘A Note on NPs Made Definite by Entailment’, Linguistic Inquiry 2, p. 254 Partee, B. Hall (1970), ‘Opacity, Conference, and Pronouns’, Synthese 21, pp. 359–85 Reinhart, T. (1976), ‘The Syntactic Domain of Anaphora’, dissertation, MIT Reinhart, T. (1979), ‘Syntactic Domains for Semantic Rules’, in Guenther and Schmidt (1979), pp. 107–30 Stenning, K. (1978), ‘Anaphora as an approach to pragmatics’, in Halle, Bresnan and Miller (1978), pp. 162–200 Winkelmann, O. (1978), Artikelwahl, Referenz und Textkonstitution in der französischen Sprache, Haag and Herchen, Frankfurt/Main Zwarts, F. (1976), ‘Over de Disjunctie Conditie op anafora’, TABU 6, pp. 35–9...
