Abstract
I argue that pronominal anaphora across mixed parafictional/metafictional discourse (e.g. In The Lord of the Rings, \(Frodo_{i}\) goes through an immense mental struggle. \(He_{i}\) is an intriguing fictional character!) poses a problem for current dynamic approaches to fiction. I evaluate different possible solutions in a workspace account based on a descriptivist approach, Maier’s psychologistic DRT, Zalta’s logic of abstract objects and Recanati’s dot-object analysis of fictional characters.
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Notes
- 1.
I adopt this term from Klauk [13] although he uses it to refer to only the realist variant of the problem.
- 2.
For details, see Semeijn [24].
- 3.
As an anonymous reviewer noted, fiction about non-fictional objects (e.g. historical fiction) poses a challenge for this analysis. When we for instance read “That’s a fine death!” said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski in War and Peace, we update the workspace with information about Napoleon. If we then perform fictive closure as in the above DRS’s, the discourse referent for ‘Napoleon’ will end up embedded. Arguably, War and Peace is about the real Napoleon – for which there probably already is a discourse referent in the main box – rather than about a fictional counterpart. Further research will have to produce an additional mechanism that links embedded discourse referents for non-fictional objects to their real counterparts.
- 4.
For simplicity, I henceforth omit the anaphoric links of the possessive ‘his’.
- 5.
With the possible exception of Maier’s cognitive framework (See Sect. 4.2).
- 6.
Here I follow Geurts [9] in analysing proper names as triggering presuppositions.
- 7.
Maier does allow that there may turn out to be some structural constraints on specific cross-attitudinal dependencies.
- 8.
This distinction originally comes from Mally [19].
- 9.
If we also incorporate theorem (I) we could simplify the representation of the common ground with respect to statements about native fictional characters.
- 10.
This move comes at a theoretical cost since it greatly complicates fictive closure (and opening), i.e. some discourse referents for ordinary objects in the workspace are replaced with discourse referents for abstract objects in the main box (and vice versa for fictive opening). The move is, however, in line with Zalta’s analysis of fictional names in fictional statements (See Zalta [30, 31]); Fictional statements do not involve reference to abstract objects but rather constitute the practice of story telling that determines – through an extended ‘naming baptism’ – what abstract objects the fictional names in parafictional and metafictional statements refer to. Moreover, fictive closure* and opening* allow an abstract object account to be extended to pronominal anaphora across mixed discourse with on the one hand a fictional statement and on the other hand either a metafictional or a parafictional statement.
- 11.
A similar concern has been voiced by Klauk [13].
- 12.
Here I assume that it is common ground that there is a dot-object Frodo after the parafictional update in (5). This is not obvious. Arguably, in the case of (12), as long as we talk about lunch as food and there is no mention of lunch as a social event, we are really just talking about lunch as food. Only at the introduction of the zeugmatic discourse does it become common ground that there is a dot-object (food \(\bullet \) social event) that we refer to. The same could be true about (5). However, as Recanati suggests, the (overt or covert) ‘In fiction F,’-prefix in parafictional discourse forces a ‘metafictional perspective’; it makes us aware of the fictionality of the fictional characters and hence it is directly common ground at the parafictional update that we are referring to a dot-object including an abstract object facet.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Emar Maier, Edward Zalta and four anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that helped improve the paper. This research is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Vidi Grant 276-80-004 (Emar Maier).
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Appendix
Appendix
Examples of all six possible types of mixed discourse with fictional, parafictional and metafictional statements.
Type of mixed discourse | Example |
|---|---|
Fictional/parafictional discourse | Robin Hood\(_{i}\) stooped low and shot his\(_{i}\) arrow just past the farmer’s ear. Yes, that’s right. In this story, he\(_{i}\)’s a villain! |
Fictional/metafictional discourse | In order to capture the wicked witch, Mary\(_{i}\) travelled to the woods and disguised herself as a potatoe. Yes, I know it’s weird but she\(_{i}\) was invented by a comedian. |
Parafictional/fictional discourse | In the story that I’m about to tell you, a wizard named Brian\(_{i}\) falls in love with a cauldron. This is how it goes: One day, he\(_{i}\) was alone in his\(_{i}\) study trying out a new love-potion recipe... |
Parafictional/metafictional discourse | In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo\(_{i}\) goes through an immense mental struggle to save his\(_{i}\) friends. Ah yes, he\(_{i}\) is an intriguing fictional character! |
Metafictional/fictional discourse | I know this great story about a mythical creature named Frey\(_{i}\). I will tell you. So one day she\(_{i}\) was walking through the woods near her home... |
Metafictional/parafictional discourse | Sherlock Holmes\(_{i}\) is a fictional character created by Conan Doyle. In Conan Doyle’s stories, he\(_{i}\) is a private detective who investigates cases for a variety of clients, including Scotland Yard. (Adopted from Recanati [22, p. 37]) |
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Semeijn, M. (2019). The Challenge of Metafictional Anaphora. In: Sikos, J., Pacuit, E. (eds) At the Intersection of Language, Logic, and Information. ESSLLI 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11667. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-59620-3_8
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