[Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"

Mattis List mattis.list at lingulist.de
Thu Jun 3 15:00:48 UTC 2021 

A quick comment on terminological problems that I often encounter in the 
context of comparative linguistics: descriptive terms are used in an 
explanatory way.

We discuss this in a study with Guillaume Jacques with respect to the 
term "shared innovation", which scholars often describe as a descriptive 
term ("we found so and so many shared innovations"), while the term 
actually bears an explicit judgment, since a shared innovation can only 
be "detected" with respect to a fixed language phylogeny, which needs to 
be established beforehand (see Jacques and List 2019, p. 141f, preprint 
with Humanities Commons at https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:25641/).

The linguistic terminology is in fact full of these cases (assimilation, 
polysemy, pronominalization), where a descriptive term is meant to 
explain something.

I consider this a problem of linguistic terminology that I'd put on the 
top agenda of any terminology committee meeting, as this leads to a lot 
of confusion, also with students of linguistics, since the confusion is 
also reflected in the handbooks.

Does not really have much to do with anaphora, but I thought I take 
advantage of the possibility to bring this up here.

Best,

Mattis


On 03.06.21 16:29, Martin Haspelmath wrote:
> 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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>>>>> -- 
>>>>> 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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