Anaphora A Cross-linguistic Study

by Huang, Yan

• ISBN13: 9780198235286
• ISBN10: 0198235283
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Understanding any communication depends on the listener or reader recognizing that some words refer to what has already been said or written (his, its, he, there, etc.). This mode of reference, anaphora, involves complicated cognitive and syntactic processes, which people usually perform unerringly, but which present formidable problems for the linguist and cognitive scientist trying to explain precisely how comprehension is achieved. Yan Huang provides an extensive and accessible overview of the major contemporary issues surrounding anaphora and gives a critical survey of the many and diverse contemporary approaches to it. He provides by far the fullest cross-linguistic account yet published: Dr Huang's survey and analysis are based on a rich collection of data drawn from around 450 of the world's languages.

Author Biography

Yan Huang is Reader in Linguistics, Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	xiv
Typologies of Anaphora	1	(15)
Introduction	1	(1)
Typologies of anaphora	2	(12)
Anaphora and syntactic categories	2	(3)
Anaphora and truth-conditions	5	(2)
Anaphora and contexts	7	(1)
Anaphora and discourse: reference-tracking systems	8	(6)
Organization of the book	14	(2)
Syntactic Approaches to Anaphora	16	(115)
Classical Chomskyan theory of anaphora	17	(33)
Typology of NPs	17	(1)
Binding theory	17	(21)
Control theory	38	(7)
Revisions and alternatives	45	(5)
Summary	50	(1)
Null subjects and null objects	50	(40)
Null subjects	50	(28)
Null objects	78	(12)
Summary	90	(1)
Long-distance reflexivization	90	(40)
The phenomenon	90	(3)
Properties and theoretical issues	93	(8)
Long-distance reflexivization in generative grammar	101	(29)
Summary	130	(1)
Conclusion	130	(1)
Semantic Approaches to Anaphora	131	(74)
VP-ellipsis	131	(25)
Definition and properties	131	(2)
Theoretical issues	133	(2)
Two general approaches: syntactically oriented versus semantically oriented	135	(19)
Summary	154	(2)
Binding and control: some semantic alternatives	156	(16)
Binding	156	(11)
Control	167	(5)
Summary	172	(1)
Logophoricity	172	(32)
Background	172	(4)
Logophoric pronouns in African languages	176	(14)
Long-distance reflexives in East Asian languages	190	(9)
Discourse representation	199	(5)
Summary	204	(1)
Conclusion	204	(1)
Pragmatic Approaches to Anaphora	205	(73)
A neo-Gricean pragmatic theory	205	(7)
A revised neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora	212	(35)
The general pattern of anaphora	214	(1)
A revised neo-Gricean pragmatic account of anaphora	214	(2)
Application	216	(30)
Summary	246	(1)
Some other pragmatic/cognitive/functional approaches	247	(14)
Relevance theory	247	(6)
Accessibility theory	253	(4)
Prague School functionalism	257	(4)
Summary	261	(1)
`Syntactic' versus `pragmatic': a new typology of language?	261	(16)
The pragmaticness of anaphora in a pragmatic language	261	(5)
The prominence of Chinese-style topic constructions in a pragmatic language	266	(10)
Explaining the differences: parametric or typological?	276	(1)
Summary	277	(1)
Conclusion	277	(1)
Switch-Reference and Discourse Anaphora	278	(52)
Switch-reference	278	(24)
The phenomenon	278	(17)
Switch-reference and related phenomena	295	(2)
Two general approaches and beyond: syntactically oriented versus semantically oriented, and perhaps pragmatically oriented	297	(5)
Summary	302	(1)
Discourse anaphora	302	(27)
The problem of anaphoric distribution in discourse	302	(1)
The topic continuity or distance-interference model	303	(6)
The hierarchy model	309	(5)
The cognitive model	314	(4)
The pragmatic model	318	(10)
Summary	328	(1)
Conclusion	329	(1)
Conclusions	330	(3)
References	333	(38)
Index of Names	371	(9)
Index of Languages, Language Families, and Language Areas	380	(10)
Index of Subjects	390