Introduction

In the last chapter, I developed a neo-Gricean pragmatic theory of anaphora. In this theory, we assume that there is a distinction of referential dependence between reflexives on the one hand, and other types of anaphoric expression on the other, and we attribute this difference to semantics. The interpretation of zero anaphors, pronouns, reflexives and lexical NPs can then be largely reduced to the systematic interplay of two neo-Gricean pragmatic principles, namely the M- and I-principles (with that order of preference), counterbalanced by the DRP, information saliency and general consistency conditions on conversational implicatures. Such a pragmatic theory, of course, does not deny the existence of distinct syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels and modes of explanation in the study of anaphora. On the contrary, it presumes the independence, or at least partial independence, of an irreducible grammaticalised stratum for pragmatically motivated constraints on anaphora. What pragmatics does here is to provide a set of complementary, explanatory principles which constrains the interpretation or production of an anaphoric expression whose linguistic representation has already been antecedently cognised. However, these are important and indispensable principles for any adequate theory of anaphora, for as we already saw in the last chapter, they can effect substantial simplifications in the syntax of anaphora.

In this chapter, I shall put the theory on further testing against more data from Chinese. I shall begin with zero anaphors. I shall look at zero anaphors in the control construction in section 6.2, in the topic construction in section 6.3 and in the relative construction in section 6.4. Section 6.5 then considers the zero anaphor/overt pronoun contrast, arguing that Chomsky's (1981) ‘Avoid Pronoun’ Principle follows directly from the interaction of the I- and M-principles.