The value of an annotated corpus in the investigation of anaphoric pronouns, with particular reference to backwards anaphora in English
This thesis investigates English personal pronoun reference in particular focusing on cataphora (backwards anaphora), using the Anaphoric Treebank (AT), which is a written English corpus with discourse annotation, and other corpus data. The analysis of corpus data reveals certain coreferential cataphora patterns (in particular in the initial adverbial or initial direct speech constructions). On the basis of the corpus data, the claims on cataphora made by generative approaches and cognitive discourse theories are tested. The points which became clear in testing generative approaches are: (1) The result of an informant test indicates the inadequacy of narrowly restricting data to invented examples. (2) The lack of understanding of the scope of the application of the theory can be observed in Reinhart (1984) and Binding theories. (3) A sentential-level approach to investigate pronoun references is inadequate. The points which became clear in testing cognitive discourse theories are: (i) First mention cataphora and Overriding-type of cataphora clearly show that there is such a phenomenon that can be called cataphora. contrary to the sceptical view on cataphora. (ii) These cataphora data indicate that a pronoun
Tanaka, Izumi
Linguistics
The value of an annotated corpus in the investigation of anaphoric pronouns, with particular reference to backwards anaphora in English. This thesis investigates English personal pronoun reference in particular focusing on cataphora (backwards anaphora), using the Anaphoric Treebank (AT), which is a written English corpus with discourse annotation, and other corpus data. The analysis of corpus data reveals certain coreferential cataphora patterns (in particular in the initial adverbial or initial direct speech constructions). On the basis of the corpus data, the claims on cataphora made by generative approaches and cognitive discourse theories are tested. The points which became clear in testing generative approaches are: (1) The result of an informant test indicates the inadequacy of narrowly restricting data to invented examples. (2) The lack of understanding of the scope of the application of the theory can be observed in Reinhart (1984) and Binding theories. (3) A sentential-level approach to investigate pronoun references is inadequate. The points which became clear in testing cognitive discourse theories are: (i) First mention cataphora and Overriding-type of cataphora clearly show that there is such a phenomenon that can be called cataphora. contrary to the sceptical view on cataphora. (ii) These cataphora data indicate that a pronoun
value annotate corpus investigation anaphoric pronoun particular_reference backwards anaphora english investigates english personal_pronoun reference particular_focus backwards anaphora use anaphoric write_english corpus discourse annotation corpus_data analysis corpus_data reveals certain pattern particular initial adverbial initial direct speech construction basis corpus_data claim make generative approach cognitive discourse theory test point become_clear test generative approach informant test indicate inadequacy narrowly restrict data invent example lack scope application theory observe binding_theory sentential level investigate pronoun reference inadequate point become_clear test cognitive discourse theory first mention type clearly_show phenomenon call contrary sceptical view data_indicate pronoun