Conceptual reference points, anaphora and conversational structure in Russian
Research into the distribution of full NPs versus anaphora in English has
come to the conclusion that a pronoun is used if the referent is in consciousness
(Chafe 1976, 1994; Dillon 1981) or high in topicality (Givón 1983). Similar
claims for Russian are found in Kibrik (1996, 1997). Kibrik (1996) provides
what he considers to be a first approximation at a model which can explain the
activation processes involved in the distribution of anaphora in a short story
by adding numerical values assigned to such factors as distance to the antecedent,
the syntacticand semantic roles of the antecedent, animacy, and soon, based
on the close analysis of a single short story.
The present study expands our understanding of activation processes in an
examination of spontaneous speech based on the reference point model (van Hoek
1995). In Russian conversation, the distribution of anaphora depends not only
upon the activation status of the referent, but upon the interlocutor's evaluation
as to whether the referent is in the interlocutor's consciousness. In addition,
distribution is dependent upon discourse structure. For example, Fox (1987)
has shown differences in the use of English anaphora in written language and
conversation. Specifically, Fox argues that in non-story conversation, after
the first mention of a referent (where a full NP is used), the use of a pronoun
shows that the speaker "displays an understanding that the sequence has
not been closed down" (1987: 139). The situation in Russian is further
complicated by the fact that the language offers a range of morphosyntactic
possibilities in encoding activation states: full NP, personal pronouns, demonstrative
pronouns and zero anaphora. In the present paper it is argued that this distribution
can best be described in terms of a reference point model. This model, developed
with the framework of cognitive grammar, has been shown to have an advantage
in explaining for English nominal coreference, in that it is able to account
for distributions previously defined in terms of different sets of principles:
syntactic constraints versus discourse-level structural constraints (see van
Hoek 1995). van Hoek applies the model primarily at the sentential level, and
only briefly touches on its applicability to cross-sentential patterns, which
are explored more fully here. In Russian conversation, saliency and the marking
of referents needs to be defined both in terms topicality, as measured in terms
of an adaptation of Givón's (1983) measures of topic significance, and
in terms of word order and intonation (Yokoyama 1986); and in terms of turn-taking
structure. These constraints are presented within in a unified account in terms
of conceptual reference points and connectivity.
The study is based on two sets of data: a corpus of tape-recorded spontaneous
conversation, and a corpus of elicited narratives, controlled for semantic content
as developed by Bambeg (1987).
Bamberg, Michael. 1987. The Acquisition of Narratives: Learning to Use Language.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
------. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics and
point of view. In Charles Li, ed., Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press.
Dillon, George L. 1981. Constructing Texts: Elements of a Theory of Composition
and Style. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fox, Barbara. 1987. Discourse Structure and Anaphora. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Givón, Talmy. 1983. Topic continuity in spoken discourse. In Talmy
Givón, ed., Topic Continuity in Discourse: Quantified Cross-Linguistic
Studies, 34763. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Kibrik, Andrej A. 1997. Modelirovanie mnogofaktornogo processa: vybor referencialnogo
sredstva v russkom diskurse. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta: Filologija 53/9:
94105.
------. 1996. Anaphora in Russian narrative prose: A cognitive calculative
account. In Barbara A. Fox, ed., Studies in Anaphora, 266303. Amsterdam:
John Benjamins.
van Hoek, Karen. 1995. Conceptual reference points: A cognitive grammar account
of pronominal anaphora constraints. Language 71/2: 310340.
Yokoyama, Olga T. 1986. Discourse and Word Order. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.