CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Anaphora：The Central Notion 1
1.1.1 Defining Anaphora in Its Narrow Sense 2
1.1.2 Direct Anaphora vs.Indirect Anaphora 4
1.1.3 Anaphor-oriented Classification of Nominal Anaphora 5
1.1.4 Identity-of-reference Anaphora vs.Identity-of-sense Anaphora 8
1.1.5 Intrasentential Anaphora vs.Intersentential Anaphora 9
1.1.6 The Scope and Focus of This Study 10
1.2 Central Theme and Basic Assumptions of This Study 11
1.3 Research Methodology and Data Collection 13
1.4 Organization of the Book 14
CHAPTER 2 A CRITICAL SURVEY OF RESEARCHES ON DISCOURSE ANAPHORA 16
2.1 Linguistic Approaches to Anaphora Distribution in Discourse 16
2.1.1 The Textual Approach 17
2.1.2 The Pragmatic Approach 24
2.1.3 The Cognitive Approach 30
2.2 Computational Approaches to Anaphora Resolution 43
2.2.1 The BFP Algorithm：A Knowledge-poor Model Based on Centering Theory 44
2.2.2 Veins Theory：A Knowledge-based Model Driven by Rhetorical Structure Theory 48
2.3 Summary 51
2.3.1 Manner of Processing：Hierarchical vs.Linear 52
2.3.2 Angle of Approaching：Bidirectional vs.Unidirectional 53
2.3.3 Orientation of Modeling：Knowledge-based vs.Knowledge-poor 55
CHAPTER 3 AN ANAPHORA-ORIENTED DEPICTION OF DISCOURSE STRUCTURE 57
3.1 Grosz and Sidner's Structural Theory：The Guiding Framework 57
3.2 Decomposing Discourse：The Foundation Stage 62
3.3 Portraying Intentional Structure with RST 65
3.3.1 RST：Portraying Discourse Structure with Rhetorical Relations 66
3.3.2 Synthesizing RST with Intentional Structure：Nuclearity vs.Dominance 70
3.3.3 Categorizing Rhetorical Relations in Terms of Anaphora Processing 73
3.4 Modeling Attentional State with CT 84
3.5 Summary 88
CHAPTER 4 REMODELING ATTENTIONAL STATE WITHIN INTENTIONAL STRUCTURE 90
4.1 Specifying the Centering Update Unit：EDU and ARU 90
4.2 Idantifying Attentional Center：The Assessment of Salience Weight 94
4.2.1 Dynamic Loading of Information：Topic vs.Focus 95
4.2.2 The Formal Bias for Referential Prominence：Pronominalization 103
4.2.3 The Viewpoint Effect on Salience Denotation：Empathy 105
4.3 Accounting for Centering Transition in Terms of Rhetorical Relations 108
4.3.1 Alignment Effect 108
4.3.2 Parallel Effect 111
4.3.3 Garden-Path Effect 113
4.4 Modeling Attentional Accessibility within Rhetorical Scope 116
4.5 Summary 122
CHAPTER 5 THE OPTIMIZATION OF DISCOURSE ANAPHORA IN THE LIGHT OF STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS 124
5.1 Theoretical Foundation 124
5.1.1 Optimality Theory：Providing the Selection Procedure 124
5.1.2 Centering Optimality Theory：Reformulating CT within OT 125
5.2 The Working Mechanism of GEN 128
5.2.1 Identifying Pleonastic Pronouns 128
5.2.2 Setting the Search Scope of Potential Antecedents 131
5.3 The Working Mechanism of EVAL 135
5.4 Empirical Evaluation of the Optimizing Model 144
5.4.1 Shallow Processing of the Test Corpus 145
5.4.2 Applying the Optimizing Model to Anaphora Interpretation 148
5.4.3 Error Analysis 162
5.5 Summary 166
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS 168
6.1 A summary of My Work 168
6.1.1 Defining the Notion Anaphora 168
6.1.2 A Critical Survey of Relevant Literature 169
6.1.3 Depicting Discourse Structure for Anaphora Processing 169
6.1.4 Polishing CT from Local to Global 170
6.1.5 Optimizing Discourse Anaphora 171
6.2 Contributions of the Study 173
6.2.1 Proposing an Anaphora-oriented Structural Model 173
6.2.2 Remodeling CT with Better Treatment for Discourse Anaphora 173
6.2.3 Formulating an Ideal Resolution System with the Merits of OT 174
6.3 Limitations of the Study 175
6.3.1 Inexplicit Representation of Knowledge Source and Contextual Information 175
6.3.2 Narrow-scale Data Base for a General Framework of Anaphora Processing 175
6.4 Future Research Directions 176
6.4.1 Cross-linguistic Applicability 176
6.4.2 Bidirectional Optimization 177
6.4.3 Coherence Evaluation 178
Bibliography 180
Appendix Ⅰ Definitions of Rhetorical Relations 195
Appendix Ⅱ Data Base 201
Acknowledgements 202