[Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"
Volker Gast
volker.gast at uni-jena.de
Thu Jun 3 11:19:18 UTC 2021
Martin
I agree that standardization is important, and that the lack of standard
terminology is a major weakness of contemporary linguistics. I'm not sure
if Twitter is a good standardization committee though. :-)
But another factor that needs to be taken into account is the type of
noun/entity than 'x-phoric' modifies. I think many linguists use
'anaphoric pronoun' as contrasting with 'demonstrative/deictic pronoun'
(as a morphosyntactic class). 'Anaphoric reference' has a different
contrast set (e.g. 'cataphoric', 'exophoric'), and it is my impression
that it is less ambiguous than 'anaphoric pronoun'. (Note that 'cataphoric
pronoun' mostly means 'pronoun with cataphoric reference'; I'm not aware
of a language with a morphosyntactic class of elements for cataphoric
reference exclusively).
What makes things even more confusing is the use of the term 'anaphor(a)',
specifically in generative syntax, for elements that require a local
binder. But that's a different story.
I still think that the Halliday taxomony (of types of reference) makes
sense. If you want to distinguish pronouns with predominantly endophoric
uses from pronouns with predominantly exophoric uses, you can use
'anaphoric' for the former class if you like, as these pronouns (such as
English 'she') are used anaphorically in the vast majority of cases (and I
think that's where the confusion stems from). In fact, cataphoric
reference is often expressed with demonstratives ("I'll tell you this:
..."). But perhaps the more traditional terminology is not so bad after
all: The distinction between 'personal pronouns' and 'demonstratives'. In
that case we could just use 'x-phoric' as a modifier of 'reference' only,
not of 'pronoun'. "She went home" would imply a personal pronoun with
anaphoric reference. It is my impression that as a modifier of
'reference', 'anaphoric' is much less ambiguous than it is in the context
of 'pronoun'.
So the question is, would linguists feel that 'anaphoric' is ambiguous as
a modifier of 'reference', too? Your question on Twitter did not make that
clear and I suppose most respondents treated it as a modifier of
'pronoun'.
Finally, note that the ambiguity of the type observed in 'anaphoric' is
widespread in natural language: 'day' refers both to a time span of 24
hours ('one day') and one half of it ('day' vs. 'night'). Still, I agree
that ambiguity should be avoided in academic terminology. So if
'anaphoric' is in fact ambiguous, and if that ambiguity creates confusion,
replacing it with a more specific term sounds like a good idea to me.
Best,
Volker
_____________
Prof. V. Gast
https://linktype.iaa.uni-jena.de/VG
On Thu, 3 Jun 2021, Martin Haspelmath wrote:
> I can understand that many linguists are hesitant to discuss terminological standardization, because there is almost no history of this in linguistics.
>
> However, standardization is not about "deciding/prescribing what everyone else has to do", but about providing a way to avoid talking past each other (because of ambiguous technical
> terms). In technical contexts such as science, having clear terminology is generally very useful.
>
> In chemistry, the IUPAC has been thinking about standard terminology since the 1860s, and this has served the field well. In linguistics, our knowledge may not be sufficiently advanced
> yet, so such efforts may well be premature (but I made a case for standardization in this forthcoming paper: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005489).
>
> The issue is that the existing minority term "endophoric" does not solve the problem of the ambiguity of "anaphoric" – this ambiguity will not disappear unless people stop using the term
> in its most widespred sense. But this is very unlikely to happen, and it is much more likely that the new term "epanaphoric" will be adopted for the highly specialized sense
> "backward-looking endophoric".
>
> Best wishes,
> Martin
>
> Am 03.06.21 um 12:11 schrieb Françoise Rose:
>
> Personally, I see the term “endophoric” very regularly (I’ve been working on demonstratives and classifiers lately). Instead of spending energy on developing a new term, why
> not simply use the existing one that does not raise any problem ? The simple facts that people on this list (especially those publishing typological papers) use it would very
> likely enhance its use.
>
>
>
> I am in general a bit resistant about any type of committee (or discussion list) that would decide what everyone else has to do. But this kind of inclination towards
> prescriptivism or active linguistic policy is actually funny to observe among linguists!
>
>
>
>
>
> De : Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> De la part de Martin Haspelmath
> Envoyé : jeudi 3 juin 2021 11:49
> À : lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Objet : Re: [Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif]
>
> Mail priva di virus. www.avast.com
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>
>
> Il giorno dom 30 mag 2021 alle ore 15:48 William Croft <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> on behalf of JOO, Ian [Student] <ian.joo at connect.polyu.hk>
> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2021 1:54 AM
> To: LINGTYP <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>, 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>:
>
> 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
>
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> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
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