A Cognitive Approach To Deep Anaphora Resolution In English

As an important cohesive device, anaphora has always been a topic of interest in discourse analysis. Traditionally, it is regarded as a syntactically controlled co-referential relationship on the surface level of language, and therefore the interpretation of anaphora has been based on syntactical rules, such as Constitute Command by Reinhart and Binding Theory by Chomsky. Over the recent years, a special type of anaphora—deep anaphora, as was called by Hankamer and Sag—has come to attract the attention of linguists. Different from the anaphora of traditional classification, deep anaphora is pragmatically controlled and can take objects and events in the extra-linguistic contexts as antecedents.In the long history of the study of anaphora, many scholars have conducted researches, both theoretically and empirically, and have proposed such models as the Topics/Focus Model by Erku & Gundel (1987) and Sidner (1979, 1983a, b), the Scenario Model by Sanford and Garrod (1981) and the Relevance Model by Sperber & Wilson (1986). Though some scholars at home and abroad have taken a cognitive approach to the exploration of deep anaphora, there remains further research on the cognitive mechanism of deep anaphora. In view of this, the present thesis proposes a new resolution mechanism, within the framework of Reference Point Theory and Conceptual Integration Theory. The proposed mechanism assumes that context provides cues that activate a mental space which becomes the domain for anaphora resolution. Zero-pronoun anaphora can be fully interpreted by Reference Point Theory with the help of accessibility; while the antecedentless anaphora and ambiguous anaphora have to resort to the co-network of Reference Point Theory and Conceptual Integration Theory.Data analysis has given support for the proposed resolution mechanism. Its validity has been verified by instances from texts of narrative styles. The data selected for the present study come from Selected Short Stories of Mark Twain, edited by Liu Xianzhi & Chen Xiongshang, Selected Readings in British and American Short Stories edited by Peng Xiaohu, Pu Durong and American short stories edited by Hu Nanping. Some were written by American writers and others by British writers. The style of these stories varies: ranging from highly ironic to romantic, comedic to serious. The words and sentence structures used in some stories are complicated, but in others relatively simple. The examples for analysis in the present research are selected by the standard of the forms of deep anaphora: antecedentless, zero-pronoun and multi-antecedent. The pool of data is not exhaustive, but seems enough to bring forth a considerably comprehensive picture of deep anaphora in use.It is hoped that the present research will not only enhance the research in the area of anaphora resolution but also provide an alternative for understanding the phenomenon of deep anaphora from the cognitive perspective.