Remarks on Plural Anaphora

Abstract

The interpretation of plural anaphora often requires the construction of complex reference objects (RefOs) out of RefOs which were formerly introduced not by plural terms but by a number of singular terms only. Often, several complex RefOs can be constructed, but only one of them is the preferred referent for the plural anaphor in question. As a means of explanation for preferred and non-preferred interpretations of plural anaphora, the concept of a Common Association Basis (CAB) for the potential atomic parts of a complex object is introduced in the following. CABs pose conceptual constraints on the formation of complex RefOs in general. We argue that in cases where a suitable CAB for the atomic RefOs introduced in the text exists, the corresponding complex RefO is constructed as early as in the course of processing the antecedent sentence and put into the focus domain of the discourse model. Thus, the search for a referent for a plural anaphor is constrained to a limited domain of RefOs according to the general principles of focus theory in NLP. Further principles of interpretation are suggested which guide the resolution of plural anaphora in cases where more than one suitable complex RefO is in focus.