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Looking back and moving forward: what anaphora can reveal about human languages and the mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2013

Simone Bacchini
Simone Bacchini*
Affiliation:
The British Library
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Arguably, anaphora is one of the most interesting linguistic phenomena. Broadly speaking, the term refers to a relation between two linguistic elements. In this relation, the interpretation of one element, the anaphor, is determined by the interpretation of another: the antecedent. Thus, in the sentence Cordelia said she loved Manet, the pronoun ‘she’ is the anaphor, which refers back (the word ‘anaphor’ is derived from a Greek term which translates as ‘to carry back’), while Cordelia is its antecedent. Anaphora is closely linked to deixis, the phenomenon in language whereby the meaning of certain elements requires contextual and/or co-textual information.

Type
Review
Information
English Today , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 59 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

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