Nominal Associative Anaphors - A Text-Based Analysis at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface

摘要

This pilot study investigates the proportion of nominal associative anaphors (NAAs) in German texts. The research is motivated by a study that shows a high proportion of nonpossessive uses among two-place predicates (cf. [16]). Such cases could be explained by NAAs, in that their anchor may provide the required possessor argument. The question is for how many of the nonpossessive uses NAAs account for. Methodologically, we present a preliminary manual for the annotation of NAAs and apply it to a text collection of two text sorts. The results show that a large proportion of nonpossessive uses are NAAs. On closer examination not only do we find that the NAA occurrences reflect the distinction between one- and two-place predicates, but also that the distribution of NAAs exhibits differences with respect to their concept types (functional, relational, sortal, individual) proposed in the theory of concept types and determination (cf. [21]).