What else Do you Need to Know about the Referents
Karina Vamling · 2009
In a discourse fragment, the referents are referred to by various noun phrases, pronouns and personal markers in the verbform. It is interesting to consider the substitutional character of the personal pronouns. What information do they express about the referents, i. e. what does one need to know about a referent in order to pick the right pronoun? In a case like / know Johan. He works at our department, the pronoun he is chosen for the second reference to the person called Johan, as it corresponds to one male person, who is neither the speaker nor the hearer. The features involved are thus, person, number and semantic gender. The selection of pronouns is somewhat different in, for instance, the Caucasian languages, where additional features of the discourse situation become relevant, such as the distance and relative location of the referents above or below the speaker/hearer. The implications such systems may have for a formal, cross-linguistic model are briefly discussed in the paper.