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3 Types of Anaphors 3 Types of anaphors Moving from the definition and characteristics of anaphors to the types of ana- phors, this chapter will detail the nomenclature of anaphor types established for this book. In general, anaphors can be categorised according to: their form; the type of relationship to their antecedent; the form of their antecedents; the position of anaphors and antecedents, i.e. intrasentential or intersentential; and other features (cf. Mitkov 2002: 8-17). The procedure adopted here is to catego- rise anaphors according to their form. It should be stressed that the types dis- tinguished in this book are not universal categories, so the proposed classifica- tion is not the only possible solution. For instance, personal, possessive and re- flexive pronouns can be seen as three types or as one type. With the latter, the three pronoun classes are subsumed under the term “central pronouns”, as it is adopted here. Linguistic classifications of anaphors can be found in two established gram- mar books, namely in Quirk et al.’s A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (2012: 865) and in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Stirling & Huddleston 2010: 1449-1564). Quirk et al. include a chapter of pro- forms and here distinguish between coreference and substitution. However, they do not take anaphors as their starting point of categorisation. Additionally, Stirling & Huddleston do not consider anaphors on their own but together with deixis. As a result, anaphoric noun phrases with a definite article, for example, are not included in both categorisations. Furthermore, Schubert (2012: 31-55) presents a text-linguistic view, of which anaphors are part, but his classification is similarly unsuitable because it does not focus on the anaphoric items specifi- cally. For instance, it is doubtful if extended reference, i.e. it and this/that refer- ring to a clause, belongs (as he details it) to his category of “comparative refer- ence”, or to “personal reference” and “demonstrative reference” because these are personal/demonstrative pronouns (cf. ibid.: 35). In addition, other classifications, for instance, from Huang (2000: 2-5) could be considered. He divides anaphora up into two syntactic categories: noun phrase- (including noun-) anaphora and verb phrase-anaphora. However, these classes are too broad and unspecific for computational tasks. Mitkov (2002: 8- 15) proposes a further classification giving more weight to the computational aspect of anaphora resolution. He distinguishes between pronominal anaphora, lexical noun phrase anaphora, noun anaphora, verb anaphora, adverb anaph- ora and zero anaphora. Such categories are too vague from a linguistic point of view. For instance, lexical noun phrase anaphora is realised, per definition, as definite noun phrase or proper name and its antecedent is a full noun phrase. DOI 10.1515/9783110416756-004 Open Access © 2020 Helene Schmolz, publiziert von Walter de Gruyter GmbH. Dieses Werk ist lizenziert unter der Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Lizenz. 24 | Types of anaphors Noun anaphora, such as one in example (6), however, does not have a full noun phrase but only a noun as antecedent. One problem of such a classification is, for instance, whether this belongs more to lexical noun phrase anaphora be- cause it is a definite noun phrase, or to noun anaphora because it often takes only a noun as antecedent (see chapter 3.3). Additionally, clauses or sentences as antecedents are not considered in any of Mitkov’s categories (cf. also Mitkov 2004a: 268-269). It is obvious that all these categorisations are not entirely ade- quate for anaphors.1 The criteria that are taken into account in establishing the classification in this book rely on both linguistic viewpoints and practicability for computational tasks, with the linguistic aspect in the foreground. This means that the categori- sation of anaphors predominantly follows linguistic criteria. Computational fea- tures are particularly taken into consideration in contexts where items classified as anaphors have to be distinguished from their non-anaphoric uses. Anaphors are here divided into 12 categories, which are: central pronouns; reciprocal pro- nouns; demonstrative pronouns; relative pronouns; adverbs; noun phrases with a definite article; proper names; indefinite pronouns; other forms of coreference and substitution; verb phrases with do and combinations with so, this, that, it and the same (thing); ellipses; and non-finite clauses. These anaphor types and their items as well as a detailed description of their features – which will be important for anaphora resolution – are discussed in chapters 3.1 to 3.12. 3.1 Central pronouns The expression “central pronouns” is an umbrella term covering personal, pos- sessive and reflexive pronouns. According to Quirk et al. (2012: 345-346), these three types of pronouns form one category because they belong to each other more than do the remainder of pronouns. Personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns all differentiate between person, number and gender. More impor- tantly, the characteristics of person, number and gender do not only unite cen- tral pronouns but also serve a fundamental role in finding the antecedent be- cause anaphors and their antecedents usually have to show concord in these three features. Consequently, person, number and gender are of great impor- || 1 It should be mentioned that there are further classifications in the context of computational anaphora resolution. These classifications are not generally accepted but rather have been devised by individual researchers/authors. A selection of such classifications can be found with anaphora resolution systems in chapter 6.3. Central pronouns | 25 tance for anaphora resolution. Furthermore, Quirk et al. (2012: 335-336, 346) state that central pronouns are by far the most important of all pronouns, espe- cially personal pronouns, because of their frequency and grammatical features. 3.1.1 Personal pronouns 3.1.1.1 Subjective and objective forms Personal pronouns divide up into subjective and objective forms, depending on the case that is required.2 The subjective forms are I, he, she, we and they, and the corresponding objective forms are me, him, her, us and them respectively. You and it occur in both subjective and objective positions with one and the same form. The distinction between subjective and objective case forms goes back to the function a pronoun takes in a clause (see example (24) and (25); cf. Aarts & Aarts 1986: 48-49; Quirk et al. 2012: 335-339).3 (24) He was at home. (25) I met him. 3.1.1.2 Person, number and gender As mentioned in the introduction, the forms of personal pronouns distinguish between person, number and gender. As to person, personal pronouns fall into the categories of first person (I/me, we/us), second person (you) and third per- son (he/him, she/her, it, they/them). The first person is typically used for the speaker/writer (addresser) or a group including the speaker/writer. The second person typically denotes one or more hearers/readers (addressees) or a group of which the addressee is part. The third person is characteristically used for third parties that do not include addresser or addressee(s) (cf. Stirling & Huddleston 2010: 1463). Furthermore, number distinguishes between singular and plural forms. The singular forms are I/me, he/him, she/her and it. The plural forms include we/us || 2 There is also a genitive form of pronouns – possessive pronouns – which constitutes a sepa- rate chapter (cf. chapter 3.1.2). 3 There are five functions that constituents can fulfil in a clause: subject, verb, (direct or indi- rect) object, (subject or object) complement, adverbial. These functions are then realised by clauses or phrases. There are five types of phrases: noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase. For an overview see, for example, Quirk et al. (2012), pp. 49-59 for functions, pp. 1047-1048 for clauses, and pp. 60-67 for phrases. 26 | Types of anaphors and they/them. The form you is used for both singular and plural. This classifi- cation does not mean that a plural form always refers to plural entities because it is possible for plural forms to refer to expressions with singular meaning in some situations. For example, they in (26) is interpreted as referring to an ex- pression in the singular (cf. Carter & McCarthy 2006: 376-382; Quirk et al. 2012: 343-345). Moreover, if a personal pronoun refers to a collective noun4 such as government, singular and plural forms can be used (example (27) a) and b)). According to Quirk et al. (2012), the decision whether singular or plural pro- nouns are used indicates “a difference in point of view: the singular stresses the nonpersonal collectivity of the group, and the plural stresses the personal indi- viduality within the group” (ibid.: 316). This is also reflected in the verb, which is singular or plural if it is in present tense. Third person -s occurs if the subject is understood as a unit (example (28) b)); the base form of the verb is used if the individuals are stressed (example (28) a)). (26) Someone who has never been skiing will not know what equipment they will need. (27) a) The team wins in every competition. It seems unbeatable. b) The team have decided that they will not take part in the next com- petition. (28) a) The team seem highly motivated. b) The team seems highly motivated. Finally, masculine, feminine and neuter gender is distinguished. Gender is principally not so important in English as in other languages because in Eng- lish, gender depends on the sex of the person (cf. Biber et al. 2007: 311). There- fore, only third person singular has different forms of gender. These are he for masculine, she for feminine and it for neuter. Masculine and feminine forms are subsumed under “personal” gender, which is contrasted to the “nonpersonal” neuter form.
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