The Double Nature of Anaphora. A Discussion with a Flavour of Systemic Linguistics

The Centering Model has been developed to model local focus shifting strategies to deal with pronominalization. Some of its deficiencies are here exemplified and discussed. We claim that the main problem with this model is the lack of emphasis on the two roles pronouns (and more in general anaphoras) play in discourse: to identify participants in the action and to establish cohesive links among text units. We propose some ideas for the development of a new model for anaphora based on Systemic Linguistics Theory. The systemic approach allows to model in a formal and homogeneous way the knowledge resources belonging to different strata of abstraction and the interdipendencies between them. By separating out the contribution of each knowledge resource to the different metafunctions, it also contributes to a better understanding of the role played by the language in realizing communication. We are mostly interested in resources that deal with nominal anaphora and in how to organize them with respect to strata and metafunctions.