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In the example, who do the pronouns she and her refer to?

English Language & Usage Asked on April 3, 2021

Page 277 of Beyond the Segment: Stress, Rhythm and Intonation reads

  • Jane said she’d been delighted long enough and Margaret offended her.

The nuclear stress rule tells us that nuclear stress falls on the last
stressed syllable, which seems to be offended. However, anaphoric references tend not to be stressed; so, if Jane’s comment that she’s d been delighted long enough is
considered to be offensive in the context, then the word offended is
an anaphoric reference, in which case it would not be stressed, which
means it obviously does not carry the nuclear stress of the utterance,
but this is displaced to an earlier position, namely, to the stressed
syllable of the word Margaret.

Could somebody elaborate on what anaphoric relation is going on here?

In the example, who do the pronouns she and her refer to? I still cannot come up with a context for such a sentence.

One Answer

For me the problem is "anaphoric" - delighted is not anaphoric - it is an adjective - and it is simply confusing to refer to it as an anaphoric reference.

She and her are anaphoric.

OED

Of, pertaining to, or constituting anaphora (sense 1b - see below); referring to or standing for a preceding word or group of words. Hence as n., an anaphoric word.

1914 O. Jespersen Mod. Eng. Gram. II. i. x. 247, I propose to apply the word anaphoric to one (or any other word) if it refers to some word already mentioned, while I say

1960 S. Stubelius Balloon 28 While machine was from the outset the standard anaphoric for the aeroplane in the press, apparatus was only occasionally used.

1b. Grammar. The use of a word which refers to, or is a substitute for, a preceding word or group of words.

1964 M. A. K. Halliday et al. Linguistic Sci. viii. 248 In English these [sc. non-structural features] include grammatical anaphora, grammatical substitution and lexical anaphora; the first is reference back by personal pronouns and by deictics such as ‘the’, ‘this’ and ‘his’; the second is the use of ‘do’ and ‘one’ in the verbal and nominal groups, as in ‘I might do’ and ‘a big one’; the third is the repetition of a lexical item, or occurrence of a second item from one lexical set.

The example is not particularly good either: Bold = emphasis; italic = de-emphasised.

  1. Jane said she (i.e. emphasised = Margaret)’d been delighted long enough and Margaret offended her. her = Jane.

  2. Jane said she (i.e. unemphasised = Jane)’d been delighted long enough and Margaret offended her (i.e. Jane).

In 1. the emphasis is on she, and the "offended" thus looses emphasis.

Answered by Greybeard on April 3, 2021

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