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<Paper uid="C04-1198">
  <Title>Contextual processing of locative prepositional phrases</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
1 Introduction
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Most often, in a nominal anaphoric relation, a personal pronoun (like &amp;quot;le&amp;quot;(clitic)/&amp;quot;him&amp;quot;) is involved in an anaphoric relationship with a nominal phrase (NP), located in the same sentence as the pronoun or a previous one. The pronoun is therefore related to the discourse individual referred to by the NP: (1)Un homme est venu ce matin. Paul le connaissait.(A man came this morning.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Paul knew him.) In this example, the pronoun &amp;quot;le&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;him&amp;quot; is anaphorically linked to the NP &amp;quot;un homme&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;a man&amp;quot;. The pronoun refers to the discourse entity introduced by the NP.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> The antecedent NP can be found in different syntactical configurations, without being necessarily related to the case of the pronoun itself. For instance, the personal pronoun &amp;quot;elle&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;it&amp;quot; (subject) can be in anaphoric relation to a NP, itself embedded in a complement (here, locative): null (2)J'ai pos'e mon portable sur la table parce qu'elle 'etait propre.(I put my laptop on the table because it was clean.) Similarly, the clitic pronoun &amp;quot;y&amp;quot; in its nonlocative uses is anaphorically linked to a NP. These uses were already studied (see, for example, (Ruwet, 1990)).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> What about locative uses of the pronominal adverb &amp;quot;y&amp;quot;1? That is, when it is used to replace the locative prepositional complement of a verb (Locative Prepositional Phrase, or LPP), like in: (3)Cette ville est belle. J'y ai v'ecu autrefois.(This town is beautiful. I lived there formerly.) Here again, in a classical way, one can say that &amp;quot;y&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;there&amp;quot; refers to a &amp;quot;place&amp;quot; introduced by a NP preceding the pronoun. We have a problem though, to rebuild the exact locative semantics of the pronominal sentence (here, something like &amp;quot;in this town&amp;quot;). The situation gets even more complicated when the antecedent of the pronoun lies itself in a LPP, like in the following: null (4)J'ai pass'e mes vacances dans le Gard. J'y ai v'ecu autrefois.(I spent my holydays in the Gard. I lived there formerly.) In this paper, we show that the pronominal adverb &amp;quot;y&amp;quot; can be anaphorically linked to a LPP, locative preposition included. This leads us to the fact that some LPPs introduce individuals in the discourse context. We discuss the functional role played by locative prepositions in this process. Finally, we explain how to account for these contextual functions within a discourse representation system such as DRT and DPL and its integration into processing a subset of French.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> 1&amp;quot;y&amp;quot; is usually considered a pronoun for its non locative uses (Ce vase est cass'e. N'y touche pas.(This vase is broken. Don't touch it.)) and an adverb elsewhere (Paul y va.(Paul goes there.)). (Grevisse, 1975) notes certain uses in which the status of &amp;quot;y&amp;quot; is unclear. It is then called &amp;quot;pronominal adverb&amp;quot;.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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