Belgian Journal of Linguistics - Volume 10, Issue 1, 1996

Abstract. Anaphoric encapsulation is a cohesive device by which a noun phrase functions as a resumptive paraphrase for a preceding portion of a text. The anaphoric noun phrase is constructed with a general noun as the lexical head and a clear preference for a demonstrative determiner. By anaphoric encapsulation, a new discourse referent is created on the basis of old information; it becomes the argument of further predications. As a semantic integration device, encapsulating noun phrases label preceding text-portions; they appear at nodal points in the text. When the head of the anaphoric noun phrase is an axionym, anaphoric encapsulation may be a strong means of manipulating the reader. Finally, anaphoric encapsulation may also result in the categorization and hypostasis of speech acts and argumentative functions in discourse.

Abstract. The research reported here has been conducted in the context of the Plinius project, which aims at semi-automatic knowledge acquisition from short natural-language texts. In this framework, a system has been developed for finding the antecedents of pronominal anaphora, in particular 'it'- and 'its'- anaphora. The anaphora resolution module operates on parser output and can make use of information generated by the parser; the lexicon gives the conceptual representations corresponding to the words. The algorithm for anaphora resolution involves three steps: (i) Assemble: construct a list of discourse entities (DEs); (ii) Identify: identify anaphoric DEs; (iii) Select: select, for each anaphoric DE, another DE from the list of DEs as its antecedent. The third step applies four constraints, i.e. rules to which a DE must conform in order to be a valid candidate: (a) semantic type agreement; (b) number agreement; (c) projection constraint; (d) conceptual compatibility. Constraints (a, b, c) are linguistic, while (d) is domain-related. The algorithm has been tested on three texts. It turns out that applying (d) before (a, b, c) considerably improves efficiency.

Abstract. Coherence, which is an interpretative principle utilised by cooperative speakers/writers and hearers/readers, should not be confused with cohesion. Cohesion markers are not strictly necessary for the achievement of a coherent interpretation of a fragment of text, relative to some context, and overt incohesion does not necessarily point to an incoherent interpretation of the co-text. Anaphor resolution is a crucial part of the process of integration by which hearers/readers guided by the coherence principle integrate their interpretation of the current incoming clause into the current discourse model. A detailed study of the interdependencies holding between discourse model, antecedent-trigger predication, and anaphoric predication, shows that the anaphoric predication, just as much as the particular type of anaphor selected, plays a more fundamental role than the current discourse context in real discourse understanding.

Abstract. It is argued that, contrary to what is predicted by many approaches to "bridging", relevance and script activation can license pronominal reference to inferred antecedents. The relevant script activation mechanism operates under conditions of prototypical role players and stereotypical predications in the appropriate script domain. The pronominals appearing in such referential uses seem to involve an attributive sense, or at least the activatability of the inferred referent.

Abstract. The starting point for this paper is the observation that a substantial majority of 'indirect' examples of anaphora in a corpus of naturally occurring discourse involve relations which would independently be categorised as 'metonymica'. Data presented from this corpus indicate that such examples occur quite regularly and tend to be overwhelmingly of a few single types; as indicated also in the psycholinguistic literature, they apparently present no special problems of interpretation. Furthermore, not just definite NPs are involved in such relations, but also pronouns. Considerations of the implications of this observation involve constructing a model of possible types of metonymical anaphora and elaborating on a paradigm of constructed examples provided by Fauconnier to explore some of the constraints on such examples. In particular, it is found that considerations of animacy (or perhaps discourse status) affect the acceptability judgments of these examples.

Abstract. The starting point of this paper is the apparent semantic symmetry between English and French pairs of examples like The name Mary, uses is not hers,/The name Mary, uses is not her, own and Le nom que Mariei utilise n est pas a ellezLe nom que Mariez utilise n'est pas le sienz. I will argue that this first-glance equivalence is misleading. In English, the possessive complement of a copular construction is ambiguous between a narrowly "possessive" reading and an elliptical relational reading. The former translates into French as a + DP, and the latter as le mienltienlsien... In both languages, the possessive predicate includes no empty nominal. English elliptical possessive DPs may include the adjunct own (his own [e]), an option which has no counterpart in French. I argue that all the interpretive features of the possessive expressions in the sentences at hand are rooted in their morphological or syntactic properties. Even logophoricity is a semantic effect of some formal properties of complex expressions of the him+self type.

Abstract. Complex reflexives such as himself and the like are D compounds, contrary to self-N compounds which are N compounds. The difference between pronouns and reflexives with respect to their distribution in compounds is expressed configurationally in terms of the difference between heads and adjuncts. The pronoun is the head, its F-features percolate in its projection chain. The reflexive is the adjunct entering in an identification relation with the head and licensing argument-linking within its domain as it projects an inalienable possession configuration. On the other hand, pronouns do not differ from reflexives with respect to their interpretability in X° expressions. In both cases only an attributive interpretation is available for these categories, as it is the case more generally for categories in morphological expressions.

Abstract. This paper gives an account of some restrictions in the application of null VP Anaphor in English infinitives, showing how the Internal Subject Hypothesis and the Split Inflection Hypothesis affect the assumptions on which previous analyses were based. The ECP and the temporal interpretation of the infinitive are demonstrated to be irrelevant for licensing null VPs in English infinitival clauses. It is shown that VP Anaphor is better analyzed as involving deletion at the PF level or on the way to it, and that it can be applied if the antecedent and target VP are "identical" at LF. It also appears that independent conditions concerning the checking of features of infinitival have and be affect VP deletion applicability.

Abstract. This paper reports on an experiment carried out with six groups of Latin-American college students. Subjects were presented with stimulus sentences with a gap produced by the removal, from an original sentence, of an anaphor (si) or a deictic (él). They were asked to fill in the gap. Two contexts were distinguished; the 'micro-context' provided by the presence vs. absence of the word mismo, and the 'macro-context', made up ofthe remainder of the stimulus. It turned out that the effect of the 'macro-context' is less than that of the 'mini-context', but that the very notion of a 'mini-context' is questionable, since si mismo may be processed as a single unit.

Abstract. This paper focuses on the use in discourse of abstract-object anaphors (AOs), viz. the unmarked personal pronoun it and the marked deictic pronouns that (this). Current proposals made on this matter by Arie (1994), Gundel et al. (1993), Passoneau (1989) and Webber (1991) are critically assessed. It is argued that the AO that has a predicating value and enhances the activation of the antecedent-trigger information, while the AO it has a presupposing value and enhances the activation of the anaphor-clause representation. The different uses of the two AOs are positioned on a scale according to their mutual substitutability. The extreme ends of the scale are taken up by the nonanaphoric and nonreplaceable uses of that or it. For each AO, the strong substitution classes contain the extreme use and the uses which scarcely allow mutual replacement. The weak substitution classes contain those uses where the distribution of that and it is basically guided by focus shift, referent establishment and referent prominence.

Abstract. This paper focuses on the ways Dutch speakers use pronouns in order to refer to the topic entity of wh-questions. It appears that, when they have the choice between a third-person pronoun or a demonstrative pronoun, they prefer the latter; however, in the answers given to wh-questions, the same discourse entity is normally referred to by means of a third-person pronoun. This phenomenon is usually accounted for by the recency principle, which predicts that a speaker accomplishes topical continuity by using a third-person pronoun. However, even when a discourse entity was already thematic over a long stretch of talk, speakers normally refer to it by means of a demontrative pronoun if it is the topic of a wh-question. Therefore, it is argued that the sequential function of the utterance as a whole may govern the selection of the coding devices through which reference is made to discourse entitites. This hypothesis would explain why the topic entity of a reported wh-question is usually referred to by means of a third-person pronoun.

Abstract. Dutch anaphoric dat has an important function in definitory exchanges. If dat is used in the recapitulation of a non-nominal definition, it increases the coherence of the defining utterance, by tying the recapitulation to the previous utterances and by permitting the switch of the focus from definiens to defmiendum. However, dat is not really coherence-building when used for left-dislocation in core-definitions. Indeed, a left-dislocated definition cannot be more coherent than a definition without interruptions and 'gaps'. The role of dat in left-dislocation is rather to permit extra focalisation and thematisation of the definiendum in non-nominal definitions, and of the definiens in nominal definitions.