Presuppositions in Spoken Discourse

Between Binding and Accommodation
These uses of definite NPs have been termed ‘inferables’ by Prince (1981),
‘associative anaphoric uses’ by Hawkins (1978), and ‘indirect anaphors’ by Erku &
Gundel (1987). There is actually a great deal of confusion about what types of
examples should be considered to involve bridging inferences, and many would
probably be surprised by Clark’s (1975) original application of the term, where it is
used to cover a wide range of relationships including what we now classify as
rhetorical relationships. These are summarized in Table 10, given on the next page
where I have also repeated one of Clark’s original examples to illustrate each
category.
There are several interesting points here. Included among the examples are
pronominal anaphors and co-referential NPs with the same head noun. These types
of examples are usually not considered key examples of bridging in other work, and
this may be because the inference needed to resolve co-referential relationships of
this kind are fairly straightforward. Bridging is more frequently applied to more
difficult examples, such as Her house was large. The size surprised me. According to
Clark, in order to understand the reference for size we need to infer that it must be
the size invoked by large. Note that the example given in the table for
pronominalization would be subsumed under abstract object anaphoric reference
in recent approaches.
Epithets is a group of co-referential bridging relationships where the bridging
NP adds descriptive information about the individual referent. Set-membership
subsumes several well-known examples of different types of plural anaphora.
In the two categories under indirect reference the examples that are generally
associated with the term ‘bridging’ in other later work are found. These include the
category necessary parts as in room-ceiling, necessary because a room almost always has
a ceiling, probably parts as in room-window, because rooms generally have windows,
and inducible parts, illustrated in the table with went shopping-the climb, where the climb
is meant to be understood as intending to refer to part of the shopping event. The
classical example given in (2) above also illustrates inducible parts, e.g. room-chandeliers.
The relationships termed indirect characterizations have to do with different roles
in events. These roles can be necessary or optional. For example, in the event
referred to by John was murdered, the murderer is a necessary role, but in the event
referred to by John died, the murderer is an optional role. Finally, the last category
contains what we today would consider to be rhetorical relations, relationships of
reasons, causes and consequence. For example the following is considered a reason, and is
also taken from Clark.
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