[Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"

Thu Jun 3 14:29:55 UTC 2021

I'm aware that the idea of a terminology committee is quite unpopular in 
linguistics, and I won't push it further.

And Juergen ist right that some problems are thornier than others. Maybe 
terminological ambiguity arises in two main ways:

(A) metonymy (e.g. type/token, sign/utterance)

(B) autohyponymy, via Gricean inference (described by Larry Horn as 
"Q-based narrowing", e.g. "rectangle" coming to refer to non-square 
polygons because of the salience of "square")

It seems to me that the latter type (B) *could* be fixed in technical 
terminology (if one wants to be rigorous), though I agree that 
metonymies (A) are so pervasive that we need to live with them.

Best,
Martin

Am 03.06.21 um 16:15 schrieb Juergen Bohnemeyer:
> Dear Martin et al. — It’s clear that the problem of terminological ambiguity bothers some people much more than others. The ambiguity created by the common use of ‘anaphora’ as a cover term for non-deictic/exophoric indexical reference exemplifies one of the most pervasive types of polysemy in natural languages: an expression is used both for a superordinate and a subordinate concept, rendering it homophonous with its own hyponym. Think _cow_(i) bovine, (ii) female bovine.  That is just how language works, and I see no evidence whatsoever that this compromises scientific terminology in a matter that would require intervention.
>
> The problem is in my view not at all similar to the need for standardized nomenclature in astronomy/biology/chemistry, where
>
> (a) the number of namable objects/species/molecules is not (contemporarily) humanly exhaustable;
> (b) the number of already named objects/species/molecules is in the hundreds of thousands;
> (c) discovering a new object/species/molecule confers naming rights, which in turn confer professional prestige and may play a critical role in patents.
>
> Fwiw., there are problems of ambiguity in linguistic terminology that strike me much thornier and more troublesome and nevertheless have no obvious fixes. Consider (1):
>
> (1) This is a sentence.
>
> Imagine trying to explain to students in an intro course the three-way ambiguity of ’sentence’ in (1): (i) a sentence as a complex sign, type-level; (ii) a sentence as a complex sign, token-level; (iii) an utterance utilizing a token of the sentence. Imagine the looks of confusion and utter disgust this never fails to put on some of the students’ faces.
>
> I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to resolve the ambiguity of ‘anaphora’. I personally try to be specific and avoid the hypernym use in any context in which the difference could actually matter.
>
> But, I do not see the need for creating some sort of professional body tasked with standardizing linguistic terminology.
>
> My two cents!
>
> Best — Juergen
>
>
>
>> On Jun 3, 2021, at 5:48 AM, Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 	Mail priva di virus. www.avast.com
>>>>>
>>>>> 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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>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
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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
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
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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