A Formal Approach to Discourse Anaphora / Edition 1

ISBN-13: 9781138223929 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Publication date: 11/02/2016 Series: RLE: Discourse Analysis Pages: 204 Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d) First published in 1979, this book starts from the perspective that dealing with anaphoric language can be decomposed into two complementary tasks: 1. identifying what a text potentially makes available for anaphoric reference and 2. constraining the candidate set of a given anaphoric expression down to one possible choice. The author argues there is an intimate connection between formal sentential analysis and the synthesis of an appropriate conceptual model of the discourse. Some of the issues with the creation of this conceptual model are discussed in the second chapter, which follows a background to the thesis that catalogues the types of anaphoric expression available in English and lists the types of things that can be referred to anaphorically. The third and fourth chapters examine two types of anaphoric expre