This paper is a study in the grammar of coreference. A wide variety of evidence is presented which shows that the distribution of nominal expressions in English sentences if subject to previously unsuspected constraints involving coreference. Principles are suggested which explain a large number of such cases in terms of general restrictions on…

Proposes a semantic theory with applications to performatives, speech acts, and pragmatic theory. (AM)

Calls "pro-words" those which refer to a preceding substantive. They are (1) pronouns, (2) pronominal adverbs - "dadurch,""hiermit,""wofur," etc., and (3) pro-adverbs - "dort,""dann," etc. Both (2) and (3) stand for combinations of preposition plus preceding substantive; (3) does this only semantically, while (2) marks the relation overtly. (Text…

Presents an integrated theory of the syntactic and semantic representation of complements where the unexpressed subjects of the embedded verb-phrase complement are subject to certain interpretation restrictions. It is argued that the grammar of English controlled complements can be derived from the interaction of semantically based principles of…

A technique is demonstrated whereby an implicit semantic feature can be related to a grammatical alternative (pronoun-antecedent assignment) and thereby made explicit. It is also demonstrated that pragmatic, syntactic and other semantic features interact in an orderly way with this implicit feature of causality in verbs. (RC)

Data are presented that challenge the difficulty ordering for anaphoric syntax (e.g., pronouns) proposed by Bormuth, Manning, Carr, and Pearson. It is suggested that any such difficulty ordering which results from tests of the form proposed by Bormuth has uncontrolled variability due to semantic factors that have yet to be carefully analyzed and…

Synonyms are not in syntactic free-variation. Some text composition rules are examined and it is shown that they prevent the occurrence of paradoxical utterances which could arise if synonyms were freely substitutable. (Text is in German.) (TL)

Analyzes the uses of "quien" as an interrogative and a relative pronoun with numerous examples from standard spoken Spanish. Emphasizes syntactic and contextual factors, as well as stylistic variations, and explains the contrast between "quien" and "que" as subjects of a relative clause. (MES)

Reports results of an acquisition experiment with a group of Spanish-speaking children regarding their knowledge of a semantic restriction that prevents a referring expression from coreferring with a pronoun in certain syntactic configurations if its referent lacks consciousness. Sixteen children participated in a modified Truth-Value Judgment…

Presents a study of young children's understanding that pronouns and proper names cannot be modified by pronominal adjectives. Some nonsyntactic theories are discussed that support the claim that children understand knowledge of word order through the rules that order abstract linguistic categories. (31 references) (GLR)

To integrate many of the theoretical linguistic studies examining pronoun reference, this paper focuses on tracing the shift from purely transformational syntactic studies of intrasentential phenomena to the wider orientations of discourse and pragmatic studies. The first section describes the classic studies of pronominalization within the…

It is proposed that syntactic processes (rules and constraints) may have a semantic basis. Evidence is presented that the constraint against backward pronominalization with indefinite antecedents derives from the semantic properties of various classes of definite noun phrases. (CK)

No formal notion of markedness has been advanced for syntactic-semantic features of language. A hypothesis is presented which states that if all related features are defined as comprising sets, then it is possible to predict the occurrence of a member of a set by the absence of any other member of the set. Any lexical item subcategorized for…

The third person in French grammar demands separate treatment from other pronouns because of the great differences in its rules, forms, and functions. (MSE)