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<Paper uid="C90-2047">
  <Title>Centering theory and the Italian pronominal system</Title>
  <Section position="4" start_page="0" end_page="271" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Centering theory
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> It is now widely accepted that discourse is divided into segments (see for example \[Web88\]); a discourse is coherent when its constituent segments exhibit both local coherence - namely, coherence among the utterances of each individual segment, and global coherence - namely, coherence among the different segments.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Centering is an account of local coherence: it tries to determine the entity which an utterance most centrally concerns. Besides, it assesses the  coherence Of a discourse in terms of the different moves that a speaker can do (basically, going on to talk about the same entity or switching to another one), and in terms of how these moves are encoded, in particular as far as the choice of referring expressions is concerned. According to \[GJW86\], discourse coherence is a measure of the infhrence load a certain discourse imposes on a hearer. Notice that the view I am taking on centering is as a theory of discourse production.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> From \[GJW86\], it is not very clear whether centering concerns the production or the comprehension of discourse.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> More technically, there are three moves that a speaker can perform, for every triple of utterances U~, Un+I, Un+2, belonging to the same segment: DEF. ! Continuation: Un and gn+l concern the same entity; it is likely that Un+2 will concern it too.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Retention: Un and Un+x concern the same em tity, but it is not likely that U,~+2 will concern it.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Shifting: U,~ and U~+I concern different entities. null To formalize these concepts, the theory defines ~ centers those entities that serve to link one utterance to another in the same segment; an utterance U~ typically has a single backward looking center X (Cb), and a set of forward looking centers (Of's) {}~, ...,\]~m}.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> X, YI~ ..., Ym are all candidates for being Cb(U,~+I) (in fact X = ~, for some i), and Cb(U,,+I) will be constrained to belong to the set of Cf's of U~. Both Cb(U~) and the set of Cf's(Un) correspond to linguisticaJ\]y realized NPs in Un.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> The set of Cf's for a given utterance Un is partially ordered; the ordering relation is affected by syntactic factors. In \[GJW86\], the only syntactic element that is identified in this respect is the subject of U~: it is the most likely entity to be Cb(Un+l), therefore it is the highest ranked Cf in U~. This assumption is definitely plausible, but it does not say anything about ordering among the other Cf's. For a more detailed analysis of the factors affecting Cf's ordering, see Kameyama' s application of centering to Japanese \[Kam85\], and for more recent work on this topic, \[WIC90\]. I will not address this problem in the current paper.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> Given that the Cb corresponds to the entity that an utterance concerns, the speaker has some choices as far as encoding the Cb goes. In \[GJW86\] the following rule R1 is proposed: in Un+l the speaker can use  * a single pronoun, and that is the Cb(Un+l); * zero or more than one pronoun: then Cb(U~+,) is - Cb(U~) if Cb(Un) is realized in U~+~, -otherwise the highest ranked Cf(Un)  which is realized in U,~+I.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> In order to ensure a coherent discourse, the speaker has to apply the following rule R2 as well:</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> if there are pairs {Yi,Yj}, with i &lt; j, s.t. both Yi and Yj are realized in Un+l, and if \]Q is realized with a pronoun, then Y, has to be realized with a pronoun.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> The previous rule requires that a speaker, if s/he chooses to use a pronoun to refer to a certain Cf Yj, has to use a pronoun to refer to all the other Cfs realized in the current utterance and higher in the ordering than ~.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> This rule accounts for the unacceptability of discourses like (from \[GJW86\]) 3: Ex. 3 U1) Johni wanted to go for a ride ye,~terday.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> U3) Hej was annoyed by Johni's call .</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="16"> In U3, Mike is referred to with a pronoun; Mike was less highly ranked than John as a Cf, therefore, if we want to refer to John in//3, we should also use a pronoun. The fact that in Ua the proper name John is used makes the sequence unacceptable: in fact substituting his to John's results in an acceptable discourse.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17"> 3Notice that the first utterance of a discourse does not have a Cb.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="18"> 272 3 After recognizing what Cb(U~+I) is, the hearer can derive the kind of move that the speaker has performed in the following way:  Notice the correspondence between Def. 1 and Def. 1': the notion of Un and Un+l concerning the same entity corresponds to Un and Un+l having the same Cb. The notion of Un+2 going on to concern still the same entity corresponds to Cb(U=+I) being the most highly ranked Cf(Un+l).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="5" start_page="271" end_page="271" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 Centering and Italian pro-
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> nouns I now want to recast the choices that the two Italian pronominal systems offer to a speaker in terms of centering, and, at the same time, refine centering itself. I will get evidence from examples like the following 5.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Ex. 4 U~) Maria/ voleva andare al mare.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Mariai wanted to go to the seaside.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3">  I want to show how gender and morphological markings come into play when resolving reference. Notice that these examples would not be ambiguous in English, given that null subject is not an option available to a speaker: the subject he/she would unambiguously pick up its referent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Hej has gotten angry(-masc.) because h% was sleeping.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Various interesting facts come out from the four U3 variations 6.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> \[a\] The null subject refers to Maria, who, according to the rules in the previous section, is Cb(U3.a), and the highest ranked element in Cf(U3.a). U3.a thus demonstrates center continuation. The discourse is perfectly coherent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> \[b\] The most natural interpretation is that the null subject in the main clause refers to Maria - the null subject in the subordinate clause is forced to refer to Giovanni on pragmatic grounds.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> However, for this same pragmatic reason, on second thought the null subject in the mMn clause may be interpreted as referring to Giovanni, but the discourse sounds less coherent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> \[el The speaker perfonas a felicitous center shifting by referring to Giovanni with an overt pronoun, given that Giovanni was not Cb(U2), and not even the highest Cf(U2).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> \[d\] Contrast this utterance with \[b\]. They should have the same effect on the hearer, namely, the null subject should be interpreted as referring to Maria: instead in \[d\] it is felicitously interpreted as referring to Giovanni. This happens because in \[d\] the verb is in the present perfect tense 7; the past participle agrees with the subject, and its masculine morphology forces the referent of the null subject to be Giovanni, and not Maria.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> It seems to me that Ex.4 and other similar examples point to the following generalizations: * typically, the speaker encodes center continuation with a null subject. This agrees with Kameyama's analysis of Japanese \[Kam85\]); ~As a warning to the reader, notice that I am not worrying about the interpretation of the null snbject in the subordinate causal clause, as it does not affect the interpretation of the null subject in the main clause, and it is affected by pragmatic reasons.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> TThe temporal relation between the preceding discourse and \[d\] is not right; U2 should also be in the past perfect. However, this temporal incoherence does not affect resolution of pronoun reference.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> 4 273 * he typically encodes center retention or shift with a stressed pronoun; * he can felicitously use a null subject in cases of center retention or shift if he provides Un+l with syntactic features that force the null subject to refer to a particular referent and not to Cb(U,~).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> My claim is that it is the syntactic context up to and including the verbal form(s) carrying tense and / or agreement that makes the reference felicitous or not. Consider U3.d again: it is the fact that the main verb is marked for masculine that allows the null subject to refer to something different from Cb(U2).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> Analogous considerations hold for D2.b in Ex. 2. There the clitic g\]i precedes the verb and forces the null subject to refer to Maria. The fact that the clitic precedes the verb is crucial: evidence for this derives from examples involving modal verbs and clitics.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="16"> Ex. 5 u,) u~) Mariai e' arrabbiata con Giorgio,: Mariai is angry with Giorgloj: a) C/i non vuole piu' parlarglij.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17"> shei not wants any more talk-to-himj.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="18"> b) * Cj non vuole piu' parlarlei.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="19"> * hej not wants any more tMk-to-heri.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="20"> c) Cj non lei vuole piu' parlare.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="21"> hej not to-heri wants any more talk.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="22"> Here U2.a is perfect, with the null subject referring to the higher Cf(U1), namely Maria. U2.b is incoherent: the null subject is interpreted as :referring to Maria, but when the clitic le is found, at the end of the sentence, the hearer is forced to change interpretation. The effect is similar to a syntactic &amp;quot;garden path&amp;quot;. U2.c is acceptable, for the very reason that the clitic le, that in U2.b is cliticized onto parlare, climbs in front of the modal verb vuo\[e: so the hearer is forced to exclude Maria as referent of the null subject. This happens early enough so that no &amp;quot;garden path&amp;quot; effect is registered.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="6" start_page="271" end_page="271" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Other phenomena
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The predictions presented in the previous section are quite reliable, but there are some cases that are not taken into account.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="271" end_page="271" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.1 Purpose of an utterance
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Consider the following example: Ex. 6 U~) Luisai ha lasciato suo maritoj: Luisai has left her husbandj.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> U~) C/.i/~ picchiava i bambini e si ubriacava. hej used to beat the children and get drunk.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> In this case, Cb(U2) is Luisa's husband. U2 is felicitous, although the speaker uses a null subject to achieve a shift and no syntactic clue forces the null subject not to refer to Luisa. It looks like it is the function of U2, namely, explaining why Luisa left her husband, that licenses the use of a null subject in this case.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> It may even be argued that this case is outside the purview of centering, which explicitly states that the referential phenomena accounted for are within a single segment: U2 may belong to a new segment, possibly much longer than what is shown here, that explMns why Luisa left her husband.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> On the other hand, it seems to me that the concept of local coherence is not totally dependent on having two utterances belonging to the same segment. The transition to another segment may override centering predictions; nevertheless, the referential expressions found in the first utterance of the new segment may need to be accounted for in terms of the Cf's of the last utterance of the previous segment. This may be what happens in Ex.6, if indeed U2 belongs to a new segment.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="271" end_page="271" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.2 Null subject referring to a whole
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> discourse segment Reference to a whole discourse segment is generally achieved in Italian by means of questo / cio', both equivalent to this, but sometimes a null subject is used (on this topic, see \[DiE89\]): Ex. 7 Questi grandi atleti sono illuminati dai These great athletes come under mass media ogni due, ogni quattro anal, the media light every two, every four years, e devono conquistare una medaglia and they have to win a medal lottando contro il mondo intero fighting against the whole world per guadagnarsi l'affetto della gente.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> to gain people's affection.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> Mentre in altri sport (nel calcio soprattutto) In other sports (in soccer above all), l'amore, la celebrita', i denari love, fame, money sono quasi automatici, quasi obbligatori. are almost automatic, almost compulsory. 274 5 ~b E' giusto? Is this lalr? In the preceding example, the null subject in the last utterance refers to the whole previous discourse: the fact that a null subject, namely, the pronoun with the least informative content, that should supposedly refer to an expected referent, can be used in such a way, is a phenomenon that deserves explanation.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> in general, centering does not say anything about reference to discourse segments, and in fact it may again be argued that clausal reference has nothing to do with local coherence. This actually depends on the perspective from which we look at clausal reference: it is possible that entities corresponding to discourse segment.s are implicitly included in the Cf's set; or that they are avMlable for reference, but they have a status different from the normal Cf's; or that they have a different status altogether, for example that they do not exist as centered entities until they are referred to for the first time \[WebS8\].</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> In any of these three cases, a theory of discourse coherence should at least partly address the problem.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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