Cataphoric Reference

4 Key excerpts on "Cataphoric Reference"

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  Meaning in English

  An Introduction

  • Javier Valenzuela(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  9.3 Discourse/Text Context Besides the circumstances of the physical context (time, place and person), we can also use as context whatever has already been said in a communicative Chapter 9, section [9.3] 242 event (i.e., the previous discourse). This receives sometimes a different and specific name, cotext. All languages can make use of this information, and there are a number of linguistic phenomena that depend heavily on it: we can indicate whether something has already been mentioned or not (as in the use of the definite article vs. the indefinite article), we can refer back to things already mentioned (as in anaphor); we can use previous discourse to ‘leave out’ certain parts of language (as in ellipsis), etc. In this section we review some phenomena that depend on discourse context. 9.3.1 Anaphor and Cataphor Anaphor is a way of making reference to something already mentioned without having to repeat the same word(s); personal pronouns are usually used for this. We find this in example (8): (8) Mary Poppins 1 was a big hit in the ’60s. She 1 won everybody’s heart with her umbrella. There are very complicated linguistic analyses (especially in generative and post-generative syntactic theories) that try to show how syntax constrains the range of possible co-reference between anaphor and the entity it refers to, which is called its antecedent. Other theories include a wider number of possible strategies to link an anaphor with its antecedent; a partial list of such strategies could be the one presented in Table 9.1 (adapted from Barsalou, 2014): Table 9.1 Strategies for Linking an Anaphor with its Antecedent • Recency. When you encounter a possible anaphor, choose the most recent referent in focus: Irene ate apple pie; Claire 1 ate cake. Later she 1 had coffee. • Salience. When you encounter a possible anaphor, choose the referent in focus that is most salient grammatically: It was Paula 1 who called Iraide; she 1 wanted to discuss her new book • Gender.

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  Anaphora Resolution and Text Retrieval

  A Linguistic Analysis of Hypertexts

  • Helene Schmolz(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter

    (Publisher)

  Susan . It is quite common to use the term “antecedent” also for an expression to which a cataphor refers (cf. Stirling & Huddleston 2010: 1455; Quirk et al. 2012: 862). The term “postcedent” instead of “antecedent” is also found (cf. Baicchi 2004: 30; Sladovníková 2010: 71). The relationship between cataphor and antecedent is named cataphora. Cataphors tend not to be very frequent in texts. They occur only in specific circumstances and constructions, mostly as rhetoric devices in fiction and in journalism. There is one effect for which cataphors are particularly used: they can create suspense (cf. Jackson & Moulinier 2002: 179; Finch 2005: 201-202; Carter & McCarthy 2006: 245; Biber et al. 2007: 331).

  2.3.2 Endophora and exophora

  Halliday & Hasan (2008: 31-37) subsume anaphors and cataphors under the category endophora, which they in turn distinguish from exophora. This categorisation of reference is visualised in Figure 1 .

  Fig. 1 : Reference

  Although both endophora and exophora constitute referential processes, they are different in one aspect fundamentally important for this work: whether the antecedents are found in the text or context. By definition, endophoric expressions have their point of reference in the text. Exophoric items, however, are references to the situation, so the referred item is retrievable from the verbal or nonverbal situation. It depends on the context, if an item has its point of reference in the surrounding text or in the situation, i.e. if this item is endophoric or exophoric. By reading or hearing only the sentence She likes music an outside observer does not know who she is. Yet, if a pointing gesture to the person who is meant by she accompanies this sentence in discourse, the reference is identifiable, and so it is exophoric. If the sentence Susan plays the piano precedes (see example (1)), the reference is endophoric. This also means that it is not an expression itself that is endophoric or exophoric, but the specific interpretation depends on the individual context. Some items, however, are nearly always endophoric, such as herself , or exophoric, such as here . Other items can usually be both endophoric or exophoric, depending on the context, such as this

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  Anaphoric Relations in English and French

  A Discourse Perspective

  • Francis Cornish(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 , it is the verb or other predicate of which the anaphor is an argument or a 'modifier' within the anaphoric clause, together with the latter's 'referential' features (e.g. tense, aspect, modality and voice), which primarily determines its potential anaphoric reference, and hence its full contextual interpretation. What is predicated in context of the anaphor becomes especially crucial, of course, in instances where there is no available antecedent-trigger in the surrounding text (the case of so-called 'pragmatically controlled anaphora', or 'exophora'), or where contextual factors rule out the selection of a co-occurring candidate antecedent-trigger (cf,, for example, 4(13)-20)). The significance of what is predicated in context of the anaphor was highlighted most recently in the present work by the examples of French predicate anaphora in 4.2.2.2.1, namely 4(63)-(67), as well as the discussion of them on pages 128-129.

  It is clear, then, that reference and other discourse-related functions are of central importance in the operation of anaphora. The chief purposes of the present chapter are thus to determine certain referential and discourse parameters within which anaphora (particularly discourse anaphora) operates, to establish some of the discourse functions which certain types of anaphoric relations may perform, and to specify certain constraints which these appear to conform to.

  Section 1 examines the notion 'domain of reference, section 2 investigates the notion 'discourse referent' and its location within a discpurse model via a 'linguistic reflex'; section 3 discusses the relations between deixis and anaphora; and section 4 studies the anaphoric consequences of the relationship between the correlated categories of referential number and gender, as well as the distinction between clitic and non-clitic pronominal anaphora in French.

  5.1 The Notion ‘Domain of Reference’

  Reference is clearly a communicative function which is performed by speakers/writers in co-operation with their addressees, in terms both of some presupposed discourse context and of some specific, wider communicative goal. Anaphora, as was suggested in 5.0, is one means of constructing, maintaining or changing a domain of reference within a developing discourse model.

  The notion 'domain of reference' has been invoked, more or less precisely, under many different names in the literature on discourse. Grimes (1975:Ch.20.1), for instances, writes of the notion 'field of reference' which he appears to view as having a very broad scope, encompassing the construction by the speaker/writer of a homogeneous, internally consistent universe, whether fictional or factual.

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  Word-Order Based Grammar

  • Eva Koktova(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  Anaphoric reference 249 (iii) As regards anaphoric reference in general, I propose three basic princi-ples: (a) The balance between the principle of economy and explicitness (clarity) of linguistic expression. This balance testifies to the synergetic character of natural language, and it is manifested especially in long chains of anaphoric expressions referring to the same antecedent. (b) The principle of four basic patterns of anaphoric reference with respect to the prototypicality (anthropocentric character) of the action involved: (bl) Referential identity across sentence boundary (prototypical). (b2) Referential identity within a sentence (nonprototypical). (b3) Referential disjointness across sentence boundary (nonprototypical). (b4) Referential disjointness within a sentence (prototypical). This princi-ple accounts especially for the occurrence and properties of the zero form vs. the reflexive pronoun as polarities within the basic layer of (minimal) ana-phoric expressions. (c) The principle of the hierarchy of layers (including oppositions) of types of anaphoric expressions: (cl) The basic layer of minimal anaphoric expressions, further subcatego-rized into two sublayers: (cl.l) Nonemphasized anaphoric expressions (such as those occurring in Noncontrastive Topic). (cl.2) Emphasized anaphoric expressions (such as those occurring in the Focus). (c2) The layer of (minimally) explicit anaphoric expessions. (c3) The layer of anaphoric expressions bringing relatively or absolutely new information. Additionally, there is the dimension of logophoricity, cutting across the lay-ers (cl), (c2) and (c3) above. A technical note: really unacceptable examples will be indicated by an as-terisk without brackets, and improvable examples will be indicated by an as-terisk in brackets.

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