Levels of Representation and Semantic Interpretation

The nature of the relationship between sentence form and meaning has been an important concern in generative grammar from the inception of the program. Chomsky (1955) raised the question of whether transformations preserve meaning. The suggested answer was negative at that time, and the locus of interpretation was the T-marker, the entire derivational history. In the standard theory of Chomsky (1965), it was proposed, based on work of Katz, Fodor, and Postal, that Deep Structure, a level newly proposed in that work, is the locus of semantic interpretation, though it was acknowledged that quantifiers raise certain difficulties. Those difficulties, along with similar ones involving anaphoric relations, led to the Extended Standard Theory, where Deep and Surface Structure jointly input interpretation, and soon, with the advent of traces, Surface Structure alone. In subsequent models within the GB framework, the derived syntactic level of LF becomes the sole locus of interpretation. Finally, in more recent Minimalist Chomskyan work, there is argued to be no one level of LF; rather, semantic interpretation is interspersed among cyclic steps of the syntactic derivation, reminiscent of the LSLT proposal, though more restricted, and very similar to proposals of Jackendoff and Lasnik in the 1970's. I will try to sort through the motivations for these changes, focusing especially on the problem of quantifier interpretation.

Anaphora in Biblical Hebrew: A Generative Perspective

Anaphora, that is, backwards-referring relations, are well-known in language and include such common items as a variety of pro-forms (it, that, myself, each other) and even adverbs (so). Lesser studied are forward-referring relations, i.e., cataphora. Biblical Hebrew utilises a variety of anaphoric relations, though it lacks a true reflexive anaphor. This study will introduce the investigation of anaphora from a generative syntactic perspective, then proceed to a survey of the features of Biblical Hebrew anaphora, and finally conclude with a discussion of anaphoric complexities that require future attention.

Anaphora

This chapter presents LFG analyses for different types of anaphora. Section 14.1 discusses how incorporated pronominal elements behave differently from elements that alternate with agreement markers, and the ways in which these differ from morphologically independent pronouns. Anaphoric relations and binding patterns have been the subject of much research within the LFG framework; Section 14.2 discusses positive and negative constraints on anaphoric binding stated in terms of structural relations holding at f-structure, and Section 14.3 discusses prominence relations which hold between the anaphor and its potential antecedents stated at f-structure as well as other linguistic levels. A glue-theoretic treatment of the semantics of anaphoric binding is presented in Section 14.4, modeled using a version of Discourse Representation Theory. This semantic treatment will be drawn upon in subsequent chapters, particularly in the discussion of anaphoric control in Chapter 15.

Annotating a broad range of anaphoric phenomena, in a variety of genres: the ARRAU Corpus

This paper presents the second release of arrau, a multigenre corpus of anaphoric information created over 10 years to provide data for the next generation of coreference/anaphora resolution systems combining different types of linguistic and world knowledge with advanced discourse modeling supporting rich linguistic annotations. The distinguishing features of arrau include the following: treating all NPs as markables, including non-referring NPs, and annotating their (non-) referentiality status; distinguishing between several categories of non-referentiality and annotating non-anaphoric mentions; thorough annotation of markable boundaries (minimal/maximal spans, discontinuous markables); annotating a variety of mention attributes, ranging from morphosyntactic parameters to semantic category; annotating the genericity status of mentions; annotating a wide range of anaphoric relations, including bridging relations and discourse deixis; and, finally, annotating anaphoric ambiguity. The current version of the dataset contains 350K tokens and is publicly available from LDC. In this paper, we discuss in detail all the distinguishing features of the corpus, so far only partially presented in a number of conference and workshop papers, and we also discuss the development between the first release of arrau in 2008 and this second one.

Processing Anaphoric Relations

This chapter discusses electrophysiological studies of anaphora, attempting to situate findings within the context of literature on language processing as a whole. First, it reviews what is known about electrophysiological indices of processing long-distance anaphoric dependencies, linking these brain responses to cognitive operations required to form anaphoric relations. Then the focus turns to the brain’s response to referentially ambiguous anaphors and it is argued that these responses, rather than being specific to ambiguity, reflect general cognitive processes. Finally, the chapter focuses on an array of recent studies, including research on parallels between processing of referential and syntactic dependencies, the role of referential specificity in reference resolution, and cataphoric dependencies. In doing so, it summarizes where the field currently stands, in terms of what we know and the outstanding issues that remain. In all cases, from the brain’s perspective, the ultimate question is: is there anything special about processing referential anaphora?

Foreground and Background in a Narrative: Trends in Foreign Linguistic and Translation Studies

The review accumulates the information on the Theory of Grounding and Saliency Hierarchy (based on publications that have not been translated into Russian) and describes the main modern trends in the study of grounding. The Theory of Grounding, designed in the last quarter of the 20th century, has since then been developing within linguistic, narratological, cognitive and translation studies, being applied to texts of various genres in many languages. Early works in this sphere elaborated the criteria characterizing the relative grounding of the clauses in the narrative (based on temporal sequentiality and transitivity), while later research, focusing on the wider range of texts including free indirect discourse and non-sequential prose, highlighted the subjectivity of grounding, including criteria of human importance and unpredictability into the analysis of the salient clauses. As a result the Theory of Grounding has contributed to various coexisting trends in the scientific research concerning subordination of clauses and anaphoric relations in texts on the one hand, and deixis, evaluation and perspective on the other. Touching upon these trends in the review, we pay special attention to the analysis of grounding within translation studies: the researchers focus on transitivity in translation, revealing and explaining the cases of non-intentional and purposeful changes in transitivity made by translators. The analysis of the deictic center shifts in original texts and their translations also contributes to our knowledge of grounding devices. Out of all publications, our special attention is drawn to the studies of grounding that employ Russian-language narrative materials.

PRONOMS PERSONNELS COMPLÉMENTS DISJOINTS ET PRONOMS ADVERBIAUX EN ET Y : FONCTIONNEMENT SÉMANTIQUE ET MODE DE DONATION DU RÉFÉRENT

RÉSUMÉ. Notre objectif consistera à étudier, d’un point de vue contrastif, le fonctionnement référentiel des pronoms adverbiaux en et y et des pronoms personnels compléments disjoints en français classique et en français moderne. Cette étude opposera le mode de donation référentielle des pronoms adverbiaux et des pronoms personnels disjoints. Autrement dit, nous mettrons l’accent sur les propriétés inhérentes à l’emploi de ces pronoms dans leur acception anaphorique. Ces propriétés sont en rapport direct avec leur fonctionnement sémantique au sein des textes de la période classique par rapport à leur fonctionnement en français moderne. Nous passerons en revue la nature sémantique de l’antécédent de ces pronoms anaphoriques tout en faisant ressortir les confusions en termes de traits sémantiques [Humain] vs [Non-humain] ou [animé] vs [inanimé]. Nous essaierons également de démontrer que ces confusions dans l’emploi des pronoms adverbiaux et des pronoms personnels constituent une source d’ambiguïté référentielle au sein des textes classiques et entravent la résolution de certains rapports anaphoriques en termes de rattachement du pronom à l’antécédent approprié.Mots-clés : ambiguïté référentielle, cohérence textuelle, confusion sémantique, pronoms, adverbiaux, pronoms personnels disjoints, trait sémantique. ABSTRACT. This paper aims to study, from a contrastive point of view, the repository operation pronouns and adverbial in there and disjointed personal pronouns in classic French and modern French. This study will oppose the mode of donation referential pronouns and adverbial personal pronouns disjoint. In other words, we will focus on the properties inherent in the use of these pronouns in their anaphoric sense. These properties are directly related to their semantic operation in the texts of the classical period in relation to their functioning in modern French. We will review the semantic nature of the antecedent of the pronoun anaphoric while highlighting the confusion in terms of semantic features [Human] vs [Not Human] or [animate] vs [inanimate]. We will also try to show that these confusions in the use of adverbial pronouns and personal pronouns are a source of referential ambiguity in classical texts and impede the resolution of certain anaphoric relations in terms of attachment of the appropriate pronoun antecedent.Keywords: adverbial pronouns, disjunctive personal pronouns, semantic feature, semantic confusion, referential ambiguity, textual coherence.