Paths through conceptual structure: Constraints on pronominal anaphora

This dissertation presents an analysis of the constraints on coreference between nouns and pronouns in English, within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Grammar. The central goal of the dissertation is to provide a semantically motivated account of the constraints on coreference, within a theory which does not make use of syntactic tree structure relations such as c-command. An analysis is developed which explains the anaphora constraints in terms of the semantic properties of pronouns and full noun phrases and their interaction with aspects of clausal semantic (conceptual) structure.; Chapter 1 reviews the structural models of the anaphora constraints (such as c-command and the Binding Theory), then gives an introduction to Cognitive Grammar. In Chapter 2, the constraints on coreference are motivated in terms of a number of semantic and pragmatic differences between pronouns and full noun phrases. It is claimed that judgements of obligatory non-coreference (or 'anaphora constraint violations') can be captured as instances of semantic and pragmatic anomaly, in which a nominal form is embedded in a context with which it is semantically incompatible. The second half of Chapter 2 focuses on developing an appropriate characterization of the semantic contexts in which nominals are embedded, in terms of a model of conceptual reference points. The factors which determine the organization of reference points within clausal semantic structure are explained, with emphasis on head/complement structure and grammatical relations (both of which are argued to have conceptual/semantic import).; Chapter 3 explains which elements are obligatorily associated with reference points in the clause, in terms of a notion of semantic connectedness which explains differences in behavior between complements and modifiers with respect to coreference constraints. The first section of Chapter 4 focuses on backwards anaphora in English (constructions in which the antecedent for a pronoun follows the pronoun). On the basis of a corpus of 500 examples of backwards anaphora (taken from texts), the characteristics of typical backwards anaphora constructions are identified, and then explained in terms of the reference point model developed in the preceding chapters. The second section of Chapter 4 applies the reference point model to an array of facts from the literature on coreference in discourse.; Chapter 5 applies the reference point model to the semantics of bound anaphora. Chapter 6 presents an analysis of the semantics of reflexive pronouns (himself, herself, etc.) and the factors which determine the distribution of reflexive and non-reflexive pronouns. Chapter 7 briefly addresses 'point-of-view' effects on coreference and a comparison of the reference point model with models based on the structural notion of c-command.