[Lingtyp] Term for “non-pronominal anaphora"

Daniel Ross djross3 at gmail.com
Fri Jun 11 14:44:46 UTC 2021


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From: Claude Hagège <claude-hagege at wanadoo.fr>


Dear Yaegan and all,

      I agree with Yaegan that the online discussion on terms for
non-pronominal anaphora "feels like much ado about things that have been
relatively settled for a good four to five decades". From the first edition
(1982) of La structure des langues through the seventh  one (2013), I have
maintained that an essential domain of human languages, i.e. the reference
domain, whose tools are designated by terms ending in -phoric (the
Greek-based suffix which means "referring to") can be characterized as the
anthropophoric system, whose constitutive parts are egophor (expressed by
the words for "ego" in any language) and the following ones:

                                                                   !
autophorics

                          ! chorophorics                           !
anaphorics

    egophor       exophor ! chronophorics               endophor   !
cataphorics

                          ! deictics                               !
logophorics

                                                                   !
mediaphorics

                                   THE  ANTHROPOPHORIC  SYSTEM



Choro- (space) and chrono- (time) -phorics are very often expressed by
adverbs, such as Engl. here, there, now, then, yesterday, etc., and
sometimes by verbs, as in Algonkian languages. Autophorics refer to "self".
Logophorics, the term which I coined in 1974 ("Les pronoms logophoriques",
Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 69, 1, 287-310), are an
essential part of the anthropological system. Logophorics have been taken
over by various authors, but in the conception which was (and still is)
mine when I coined this term, logophorics cannot be conceived of short of
mentioning them in the framework of the anthropological system.
Mediaphorics ("evidentials" in another terminology) are morphemes which
indicate that the speaker does not endorse what (s)he says, but assigns it
to someone else.

      Thus it appears that it is idle to wonder whether anaphoric can,
beyond its proper use for backward looking, also designate what should
actually be designated as cataphoric. Clearly, both belong to endophor and
cannot be confused. "Epanaphoric", which has been proposed in this online
discussion, would be a possibility, but adds a new complex term where those
which exist are sufficient, and moreover contains two successive affixes,
which, in technical term coining, is not very orthodox.


Best

Claude

On Thu, Jun 3, 2021 at 2:41 PM Yaegan Doran <yaegan.doran at sydney.edu.au>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Just jumping in on Juergen's prod as someone working in the field of
> discourse in Australia (in the Hallidayan tradition to boot). Just wanting
> to lend weight to the terminological distinction between anaphora and
> cataphora covered under the general term of endophora as being absolutely
> standard in the fields I work in, and so anaphora can definitely not be
> used as the cover term for both forward looking and backward looking in
> these fields. From this perspective, the discussion very much feels like
> much ado about things that have been relatively settled for a good four to
> five decades. But of course, all fields have their own traditions and
> terminologies, and it's not always appropriate for any to dictate to the
> others how they should work. It's also worth noting that in this tradition,
> the exo/endo–ana/cataphora distinction by no means exhausts the phoric
> distinctions in language.
>
> But yes, as Juergen notes, although the Hallidayan tradition under the
> guise of Systemic Functional Linguistics has a solid foothold in Europe,
> Australia, Asia, Africa and Latin America, it has always struggled in North
> American linguistics (though it's relatively well known in education
> circles in the US and other areas focusing on text analysis). Nor has it
> really engaged in much detail with linguistic typology, as it has generally
> been concerned with other things. So despite Cohesion in English having
> about 25,000 citations and Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar
> being at about 40,000 at the moment (compare Chomsky's Syntactic structures
> ~27,000 and Aspects ~42,000), and with the field having a very large
> presence across much the world, in certain subfields and areas of
> linguistics, it is simply not known – as perhaps evidenced by much of this
> discussion. But, on the flip-side, in many of the fields I work in, much of
> the discussion, references and concerns discussed regularly on this
> listserv would not be known either! Hence why I'd be sceptical, like
> others, of any attempt at standardisation of terminology that comes from
> only one sub-field.
>
> Anywho, thanks for the discussion all!
>
> Yaegan
>
> On 4/6/21, 1:05 am, "Lingtyp on behalf of Juergen Bohnemeyer" <
> lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org on behalf of jb77 at buffalo.edu>
> wrote:
>
>     I agree! Another source of terminological confusion are Pustejovskyan
> ‘dot objects’, i.e., ontologically complex concepts. The sentence/utterance
> ambiguity (which gives rise to metonymic reference in both directions,
> i.e., _sentence_  where ‘utterance’ is meant and vice versa) is a case in
> point: utterances are real world acts associated with points in spacetime,
> whereas signs/signals are abstract ideational objects. Yet, utterances
> require signs/signals that they must realize/instantiate, and signs/signals
> can only be observed through utterances realizing/instantiating them.
>
>     By the way, I’m curious whether there’s a geographic pattern in your
> poll responses. I too, like many folks here, was trained on the
> Halliday/Hasan terminology. But it’s been my impression that Halliday &
> Hasan has penetrated North America much less than Australia and Europe. I
> could very easily have that wrong, though.
>
>     Best — Juergen
>
>     > On Jun 3, 2021, at 10:29 AM, Martin Haspelmath <
> martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de> 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://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/ZLnUCq71mwf8nv5MxUZRxPo?domain=nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com
> )
>     >>>
>     >>> 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.
> https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/XujTCr81nyt87OvBzUzLWMN?domain=nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.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
>     >>>>>
>     >>>>>
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>     >>>>>
>     >>>>>
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>     >>> --
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>     >>> Deutscher Platz 6
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>     > --
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