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A Pragmatic Analysis of So-Called Anaphoric Islands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Gregory Ward,
Richard Sproat and
Gail McKoon
Gregory Ward*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
Richard Sproat
Affiliation:
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Gail McKoon
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
*
Gregory Ward, Department of Linguistics, Northwestern University, 2016 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208
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Abstract

It is commonly assumed that words are grammatically prohibited from containing antecedents for anaphoric elements, and thus constitute ‘anaphoric islands’ (Postal 1969). In this paper, we argue that such anaphora—termed OUTBOUND ANAPHORA—is in fact fully grammatical and governed by independently motivated pragmatic principles. The felicity of outbound anaphora is shown to be a function of the accessibility of the discourse entity which is evoked by the word-internal element and to which the anaphor is used to refer. The morphosyntactic status of the antecedent is but one factor affecting the accessibility of that entity. A series of psycholinguistic experiments support the analysis.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , September 1991, pp. 439 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by Linguistic Society of America

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