Anaphora, Presupposition, and Metaphore

ANAPHORA

When two expressions refer to the same thing, they are said to be coreferntial. Discourse are filled with pronouns that are coreferential with other expressions, their antecedents. Rules of discourse determine when a pronoun can or should be used instead of a longer expression. The process of replacing a longer expression by a pronoun or another kind of ‘pro-form’ is called anaphora. Here are three examples of the use of anaphoric expressions, or pro-forms:

            I love Sally and Jack loves Sally too.

            I love Sally and Jack loves her too.                            (Pronoun)

            Emily hugged Helen and Steve hugged Helen too.

            Emily hugged Helen and Steve did too                     (Pro-verb phrase)

PRESUPPOSITIONS

Speakers often make implicit assumptions about the real world, and the sense of an utterance may depend on these assumptions, which some linguists term presuppositions. Other linguists call the same phenomenon implicature. Consider the following sentences:

a.       Have you stopped hugging your sheepdog?

b.      Who bought the badminton set?

c.       Caroline doesn’t write the poems in the bathroom.

d.      Would you like another bear>

In sentence a the speaker has presupposed that the listener has at some past time hugged his sheepdog. In b there is presupposition that someone has already bought a badminton set, in c it is assumed that Caroline writes poetry. Sentence d presupposes or implies that you have already has at least one beer.

METAPHOR

Metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another. A metaphor is a figure of speech that constructs an analogy between two things or ideas; the analogy is conveyed by the use of a metaphorical word in place of some other word. For example

                Wall have ears.

The night has a thousand eyes.

Metaphors are not necessarily anomalous when taken literally. The literal meaning of the sentence

                Dr. Jeckyll is a butcher.

Is that a doctor named Jeckyll also works as a retailer of meats or a slaughterer of animals used for food. The metaphorical meaning is that the doctor named Jeckyll is harmful, possibly murderous, and apt to operate unnecessarily. Similarly, the sentence

                John is a snake in the grass.

can be interpreted literally to refer to a pet snake on the lawn named John. Metaphorically the sentence has nothing to do with a scaly, limbless reptile.

                To interpret metaphors we need to understand both the literal meaning and facts about the world. To understand the metaphor

                Time is money.

it is necessary to know that in our society we are often paid according to the number of hours or days worked.