[Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"

Martin Haspelmath martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
Thu Jun 3 09:48:51 UTC 2021


Thanks to Randy LaPolla, Volker Gast and Christian Lehmann for pointing 
to Halliday & Hasan's term "endophoric"!

Unfortunately, this term has not caught on in general, and in practice, 
the term "anaphoric" is widely used as a cover term for "cataphoric" and 
"epanaphoric" (e.g. in Huang's 2000 overview book "Anaphora"). I did a 
Twitter poll which confimed my hunch:

"What's the best cover term for "anaphoric" (backward-looking) and 
"cataphoric" (forward-looking)?

(A) phoric (35%)
(B) endophoric (22%)
(C) anaphoric (taken broadly) (43%)"

(See https://twitter.com/haspelmath/status/1400034485941460994)

Thus, "endophoric" is preferred only by a minority, and most people 
think that "anaphoric" can be used as a cover term for both – hence it 
seems best to use a new term ("epanaphoric") for the complement of 
"cataphoric".

Best,
Martin

Am 01.06.21 um 20:31 schrieb Volker Gast:
>
> Hi Martin,
> I'm not sure if we need a standardization committee here. Our students 
> grow up with the terminology established by M.A.K Halliday, who 
> distinguishes between 'endophoric' and 'exophoric' reference. 
> 'Endophoric' reference can be 'anaphoric' or 'cataphoric'. I'm not 
> aware of the use of 'anaphoric' as 'forward-looking' (as this would be 
> 'cataphoric' imho). And I agree with everyone who thinks that 
> anaphor(a) do(es) not have to imply pronouns (that would be a matter 
> of 'substitution', in Halliday's terms). What's wrong with the taxonomy
>
> exophoric vs. (endophoric (anaphoric vs. cataphoric ))
>
> ?
>
> (And wouldn't 'ep(i)-ana-phoric' be redundant in this context? Isn't 
> 'anaphoric' originally '[carry] up[stream]', hence 'backward'?)
>
> Best,
> Volker
>
>
> On 31/05/2021 10:56, Martin Haspelmath wrote:
>> Paolo's mention of the term pair "anaphora/cataphora" brings up a 
>> frequent issue in terminology: When a new and relatively short term 
>> (like "cataphora") is coined to refer to a special case, then it is 
>> not clear whether the old term (here "anaphora") refers to the 
>> general case or to the complement of the special case.
>>
>> Unfortunately, "anaphora" has thus become ambiguous: (i) it refers to 
>> backward-looking and forward-looking discourse reference relations; 
>> (ii) it refers only to backward-looking relations.
>>
>> It would be good to have a standardization committee that resolves 
>> this problem, because it seems that the discipline will otherwise be 
>> stuck with ambiguity of a key term. (Personally, I would prefer to 
>> use "anaphora" in the general sense, and to have a new term, e.g. 
>> "epanaphora", for backward-looking relations; cf. Greek κάτω 'down', 
>> επάνω 'up'. But this would be for a committee to decide.)
>>
>> Best,
>> Martin
>>
>> Am 30.05.21 um 19:37 schrieb paolo Ramat:
>>> I agree with Bill: "anaphora" does not refer only to "pronouns" or 
>>> "pro-forms". In a sentence such as /The jury found him guilty and 
>>> the verdict shocked him deeply/ 'the verdict' refers anaphorically 
>>> (= looking backwards)  to what has been said  in the first 
>>> coordinated sentence. On the contrary, /The verdict of the jury was: 
>>> he is guilty /. 'the verdict' is in cataphoric (=looking forwards) 
>>> position.
>>> I think that if we consider anaphora and cataphora together, we can 
>>> get a better understanding of both.
>>>
>>> Paolo
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>> Il giorno dom 30 mag 2021 alle ore 15:48 William Croft 
>>> <wcroft at unm.edu <mailto:wcroft at unm.edu>> ha scritto:
>>>
>>>     Dear all,
>>>
>>>     I find the definition of "anaphora" implied in Ian's post to
>>>     presuppose a theory of anaphora that not everyone, certainly not
>>>     myself, agrees with. Namely, that anaphora only happens across
>>>     sentences, and/or the only strategy for anaphora are "pronouns"
>>>     or "pro-forms". Both of these assumptions have been debated, and
>>>     there are different theories; see Croft (2013) and references
>>>     cited therein. I think "anaphora" as a comparative concept
>>>     should be defined more broadly -- as I think it generally is --
>>>     to accommodate different theories about the possible form of
>>>     anaphoric expressions, and their possible distribution.
>>>
>>>     Bill
>>>
>>>     Croft, William. 2013. “Agreement as anaphora, anaphora as
>>>     coreference.” /Languages across boundaries: studies in memory of
>>>     Anna Siewierska/, ed. Dik Bakker and Martin Haspelmath, 107-29.
>>>     Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
>>>
>>>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>     *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>     <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of
>>>     JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk
>>>     <mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>>
>>>     *Sent:* Sunday, May 30, 2021 1:54 AM
>>>     *To:* LINGTYP <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>     <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
>>>     *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"
>>>
>>>     *[EXTERNAL]*
>>>
>>>     Dear all,
>>>
>>>     thank you for your guidance.
>>>     I think the closest form is “lexical/nominal anaphora” but given
>>>     the examples I’ve read so far, it seems that they are different
>>>     from the lexical repetition within a clause.
>>>     For example, in the following sentence, “the guy” refers to
>>>     John, but it’s not in the same clause as “John”:
>>>     “I know John_i. The guy_i has a dog.”
>>>     But in the following Korean, the two occurences of “John” are
>>>     within the same clause:
>>>     “John_i-kwa John_i-uy kay" (lit. John_i and John_i’s dog)
>>>     So I think the the within-clause repetition and cross-clause
>>>     repetition must be distinguished.
>>>     Also I agree with Martin’s initial suggestion that this Korean
>>>     case shouldn’t be termed as “anaphora” because it really isn’t
>>>     anaphoric reference. It’s just the repeated occurrence of the
>>>     same lexeme where you would expect anaphora in an European
>>>     language, so to call it anaphora might be a little Euro-centric.
>>>
>>>     From Hong Kong,
>>>     Ian
>>>     On 27 May 2021, 11:41 PM +0800, Christian Chiarcos
>>>     <christian.chiarcos at web.de <mailto:christian.chiarcos at web.de>>,
>>>     wrote:
>>>>     Depends on the context, I guess. In the area of *anaphor
>>>>     resolution* and *linguistic annotation*, "nominal anaphora" is
>>>>     much more established. "Lexical anaphora" is potentially
>>>>     ambiguous, because it would also cover or at least overlap with
>>>>     "verbal anaphora", a term occasionally used for "do so"
>>>>     constructions and/or verb repetitions.
>>>>
>>>>     Best,
>>>>     Christian
>>>>
>>>>     Am Fr., 21. Mai 2021 um 08:00 Uhr schrieb JOO, Ian [Student]
>>>>     <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk <mailto:ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>>:
>>>>
>>>>         Dear all,
>>>>
>>>>         is there a term for “non-pronominal anaphora”, i. e. using
>>>>         personal names or titles for anaphoric reference?
>>>>         Example:
>>>>
>>>>             Hyeng-kwa hyeng-uy chinkwu
>>>>             older.brother-COM older.brother-GEN friend
>>>>             `Older brother and his (lit. older brother’s) friend’
>>>>             (Korean)
>>>>
>>>>         I tried to search it in Google, but since I don’t know what
>>>>         this phenomenon is called, I don’t know what to search for.
>>>>         I would appreciate your help.
>>>>
>>>>         Regards,
>>>>         ian
>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>> -- 
>> Martin Haspelmath
>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>> Deutscher Platz 6
>> D-04103 Leipzig
>> https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522
>>
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-- 
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522

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