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<Paper uid="C90-2017">
  <Title>Discourse Anaphora</Title>
  <Section position="5" start_page="96" end_page="97" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
5 Comparison to Other Ap-
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> proaches It might be argued that the notion of possible antecedents is hardly original in the literature on  the topic of anaphora resolution. The Focusing Approach reported on in Sidner (1983) also employs a list that contains a number of antecedents from which the anaphor can select its co-referent. (cf. also Brennan et.al. 1987, Grosz 1983). Note, however, that the members on this list are substantially different from the possible antecedents described in this paper. Potential antecedents in the Focusing Approach are not determined by the descriptive content of the anaphor but rather by what the discourse makes available for further reference. Suppose a sentence yields 'the pump' and 'the men' as available antecedents.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> They will be on the list from which a subsequent pronoun, say 'they', selects its antecedent. The difference is that 'the pump' may be potential in the Focusing Approach but in no way 'possible' in the sense I used the term. Moreover, all potential antecedents in the Focusing Approach may be rejected in favour of an antecedent selected by a more global mechanism. This means that even the function of Sidner's list of potential antecedents in the discourse model differs from mine. I claim that failure in finding a co-referent on the list of possible antecedents corresponds to incoherence of the discourse. The list employed in the Focusing Approach has no such function.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> The anaphor could still find a referent on the more global part of the data structure, the so-called Focus Stack.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="6" start_page="97" end_page="97" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
6 Associative Anaphora
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> To illustrate what the model has in store for a non-standard type of anaphoric reference, consider a case of the 'associative anaphoric use', as discussed in Hawkins(1978). A typical example of the phenomenon is in (6).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (6) The man drove by in a car. The exhaust fumes were terrible. (cf. its exhaust fumes) Let us see how these constructions behave w.r.t.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> the model presented above. In view of the close correspondence between the bare associative anaphor and an NP that includes the antecedent in pronominal form, I propose to analyse the constructions as having an empty pronoun. The pronoun is anaphoric. Given the notion of compatibility and the fact that empty pronouns have no descriptive content at all, they are predicted to be compatible with any NP.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Combining it with the notion of recency, it means that the set of possible antecedents consists of all and only the NPs in the most recent unit. To see whether this is correct, compare the following examples: null (7) I drove by our house in my car The windows were dirty (8) I drove by our house in my car I saw my father's car The windows were dirty (9) I drove by our house in my car I saw my father's bicycle The windows were dirty (10) I drove by our house in my car The windows were dirty The front door was open In (7), both 'our house' and 'my car' are possible antecedents for the associative anaphor in the second sentence of the discourse. In (8) however, only 'nay father's car' is possibly core i~rent with the empty pronoun. This indeed is what the model presented above predicts. Intervening potential antecedents block coreference with previous candidates. The NP 'my father's car' is compatible and in a more recent unit than 'our house' as well as 'my car'. Remember that the antecedents we are talking about are possible antecedents in the sense of definition 1 above. World knowledge or subsequent inibrmation in the discourse might still consider them inappropriate. This is illustrated in (9). It is 'my father's bicycle' that is the only possible antecedent. Ruling it out by world knowledge and having no possible alternative renders the discourse incoherent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4">  Discourse (10) might seem to be a counterex= ample since 'the fi'ont door' can refer to 'the house' despite the occurence of 'the windows' in between. Ilowever, 'the windows' was not the only antecedent in the most recent unit. Remember that we've assumed an empty pronoun all along. Among the most recent compatible antecedents is the empty pronoun that corefers to 'house'. This explains why you can have chains of associative anaphora that superficially seem to corefer with an antecedent in a unit preceding the one in which the most recent compatible antecedent occurs.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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