King Saud University

Halliday and Hasan note that ‘one’ and ‘its’ never occur as possessor functioning as Head although they can occur as possessors functioning as modifiers.

Halliday and Hasan make a further distinction between ‘speech roles’ (first and second person forms), and the ‘other roles’ (third person form). They believe that the third person form is the only form that has a cohesive function by referring anaphorically or cataphorically to either a preceding or succeeding item in the text. The first and second person forms, on the other hand, do not normally refer to the text at all, i.e. their referents are defined by the speech roles of speaker and hearer, and hence they are normally interpreted exophorically, by reference to the situation.

They confirm that the first and second person forms in written language are anaphoric when they occur in quoted direct speech. Conversely, a third person form, while typically anaphoric, may refer exophorically to some person or thing that is present in the context of situation. These are presented as follows:

[4]

There was a brief note from Susan. She just said, ‘I am not coming home this weekend.’

[5]

Oh, he’s already been? - Yes, he went by about five minutes ago.

In the above examples, it can be seen that the pronoun ‘I’ in the quoted clause, while is a first person form, refers back, like the preceding third person pronoun form ‘she’, to Susan in first instance. Whereas, the pronoun ‘he’, which is a third person form and typically anaphoric, refers exophorically to a person present only in the context of situation.

Halliday and Hasan emphasise that a person who is present in the context of situation does not necessary mean physically present in interactant’s field of perception; it merely means that the context of situation permits the identification to be made.

Halliday and Hasan point out the generalised exophoric use of the personal pronouns (one, we, you, they, and it) in which the referent is treated as being as it were immanent in all contexts of situation. Since the focus of this study is mainly on endophoric or textual cohesive reference, this exophoric reference will not be discussed here, as it makes no contribution to the cohesiveness of a text.
1.2 Demonstratives
Demonstratives, unlike the personal reference items that refer to their referents by specifying their function in the speech situation, are those items that refer to their referents by specifying their location on a scale of proximity. This proximity may sometimes be metaphorical (i.e. it relates to an abstract object rather than a physical object).

Halliday and Hasan recognise two types of demonstratives: the adverbial demonstratives and the selective nominal demonstratives. These are shown in Diagram 3.2.

Semantic category	Selective		Non-selective
Grammatical function	Modifier/Head	Adjunct	Modifier
Class	Determiner	Adverb	Determiner
Proximity:
Near	this, these	here, [now]
Far	that, those	there, then
Neutral			the

The adverbial demonstratives ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘now’, and ‘then’, according to Halliday and Hasan, refer to the location of a process in space or time. They normally do so directly regardless of the location of person or object that is participating in the process. Adverbial demonstratives usually function as adjuncts in the clause. They never act as elements within the nominal group. They have a secondary function as qualifier (e.g. ‘that man there’).

The selective nominal demonstratives ‘this’, ‘these’, ‘that’, and ‘those’ along with the definite article ‘the’, on the other hand, refer to the location of a person or an object participating in the process. They occur as elements within the nominal group. The demonstratives function in the nominal group either as head or modifier with the exception of the definite article which is always a modifier and never a head. Arguably, the equivalents to ‘the’ as heads are ‘he’ (him), ‘she’ (her), ‘they’ (them) and possibly also ‘I’ (me), ‘you’ and ‘we’ (us), as in:
[6]

a. That garden seems longer.

b. That seems longer.
c. The garden seems longer.
The demonstrative ‘that’, in (a) is a diectic functioning as a modifier to the head ‘garden’, whereas in (b) it is assuming the function of the head of the nominal group. In (c), the definite article ‘the’ is a modifier to the head ‘garden’.

Like the third person pronouns, the demonstratives are often used exophorically, referring to something in the context of situation. As always, exophoric reference is associated with certain types of situation, as in:

[7]

a. Pick these up!

b. Leave that there and come here!
c. Look at the flowers!

The demonstratives ‘this’ and ‘these’ imply proximity to the speaker, whereas ‘that’ and ‘those’ imply proximity to the addressee or distance from both. The definite article ‘the’ is also used exophorically; the situation makes it clear what referent is intended so that there is no need to specify further. While exophoric references lexical do exist in both languages, English and Arabic, they are excluded in this study because they not contribute to the cohesiveness of the text.

Halliday and Hasan believe that the selective nominal demonstratives that occur extensively with anaphoric function in all varieties of English embody within themselves several systematic distinctions.

In dialogue, ‘this’ and ‘that’ regularly refer anaphorically to something that has been said before; a speaker uses ‘this’ to refer to something he himself has said and ‘that’ to refer to something said by his interlocutor. The distinction is believed to be related to that of ‘near (the speaker)’ versus ‘not near’; the meaning is ‘what I have just mentioned’, which is, textually speaking, ‘near me’ whereas ‘what you have just mentioned’ is not. These are presented as follows:

[8]

a. There seems to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness. This is what I can’t understand.

b. There seems to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness. Yes, that is what I can’t understand.

Halliday and Hasan make a further distinction whereby proximity is interpreted in terms of time. The demonstrative ‘that’ tends to be associated with a past-time referent and ‘this’ for one in the present or future, as in:

[9]

a. We went to the opera last night. That was our first outing for months.

b. We’re going to the opera tonight. This’ll be our first outing for months.
A demonstrative functioning as a modifier may refer without restriction to any class of noun. A demonstrative functioning as a head, on the other hand, while it can refer freely to non-humans, is highly restricted in its reference to human nouns, as in:
[10]

a. Now the cleverest thing I ever did, the knight went on after a pause, ‘was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course… I don’t believe that pudding ever was cooked’

b. I must introduce you to the surgeon who looked after me when I was in hospital. That surgeon really did a fine job…
In (a), it would be possible to omit the second non-human noun ‘pudding’ and say ‘I don’t believe that ever was cooked’. On the other hand, in example (b), it would not be possible to replace the second human noun ‘surgeon’ by the demonstrative ‘that’.

Halliday and Hasan believe that the only instance where demonstratives can refer pronominally to human referents, whether anaphorically or exophorically, is in relational clauses of equative type where one element is supplying the identification of the others, as in:

[11]

Do you want to know the woman who designed it? That was Mary Smith.

When a demonstrative is used with a noun the meaning is always identical with that of the presupposed item. This normally holds true even if the noun following the demonstrative is not identical with the presupposed item, as in:

[12]

I’ve ordered two turkeys, a leg of lamb, some… Whatever are you going to do with all that food?

Although the noun ‘food’, which occurred after the demonstrative ‘that’ in the second sentence, is not identical with the presupposed items ‘two turkeys, a leg of lamb, etc.’ in the first sentence, the meaning can still be seen as identical. This is due to the nature of the relationships existing between the lexical items, the noun ‘food’ which is a superordinate lexical item and the more specific lexical items ‘two turkeys’ and ‘a leg of lamb’.

When the demonstrative, on the other hand, is used alone, without a following noun, the reference may still be identical; but it may be broader, referring to the general class denoted by the noun, including but not limited to the particular member or members of that class being referred to in the presupposed item, as in:
[13]

There are two cats trying to get in. Those have to be kept out.

The demonstrative ‘those’, without a following noun, refers not just to the presupposed item ‘two cats’ in the first sentence but also to the general class ‘cats’.

Halliday and Hasan believe that a demonstrative functioning anaphorically requires the explicit repetition of the noun or some form of synonym, if it is to signal exact identity of specific reference; that is, to refer unambiguously to the presupposed item at the identical degree of particularisation. A demonstrative without a following noun may refer to a more general class that includes the presupposed items; and this also applies under certain conditions to a demonstrative with a following noun-namely if the context is such that the noun can be interpreted more generally. This is restricted to spoken discourse which is beyond the scope of this study.

Halliday and Hasan also maintain that there is a distinction between the particular use of a demonstrative, having exact identity or reference with the presupposed item, and the generalised use related to that between defining and non-defining modifiers. This distinction does not affect the textual function of demonstratives since both uses are equally associated with anaphoric reference and hence contribute to cohesion within the text.

Halliday and Hasan believe that all the above-mentioned distinctions have some relevance to cohesion as they partially determine the use of these items in endophoric (textual) reference.

Halliday and Hasan classify the definite article ‘the’ with the determiners in general and with the specific determiners -the class that includes the demonstratives and the possessives- in particular. This classification is due to the uniqueness of the definite article ‘the’, i.e. there is no other item in English that behaves exactly like it. But, unlike the demonstratives which can function as head, the definite article functions only as a modifier to the head of the nominal group.

Unlike the other specific determiners, which contain within themselves some referential element in terms of which the item in question is to be identified, the definite article ‘the’ identifies a particular individual or subclass within the class designated by the noun through dependence on something else, i.e. it merely indicates that the item in question is specific and identifiable; that somewhere the information necessary for identifying it is recoverable. This information is exophoric- in the situation- or endophoric- in the text. If it is exophoric, the item is identifiable in one of two ways.

i. A particular individual or subclass is being referred to, and that individual or subclass is identifiable in the specific situation, as in:
[14]

Don’t go; the train’s coming.

Here, the noun phrase ‘the train’ is interpreted as ‘the train we’re both expecting’.
ii. The reference is identifiable on extra-linguistic grounds regardless of the situation, either because there is only one member of the class of objects referred to (e.g. ‘the sun’), or because the referent is the whole class (e.g. ‘the stars’); or considered as a representative of the whole class like ‘the child’ in the following example:
[15]

As the child grows, he learns to be independent.

Alternatively, the source of identification may lie in the text, i.e. endophoric. In this case it may refer forward (cataphorically) or backward (anaphorically). Cataphoric reference with the definite article ‘the’ is limited to the structural type; unlike the selective demonstratives, ‘the’ can never refer forward across a sentence boundary cohesively. It can only refer to a modifying element within the same nominal group as itself (e.g.: the party in power). Anaphoric reference, on the other hand, takes place when the information needed to identify an item is to be recovered from the preceding text, as in:

[16]

She found herself in a long, low hall…. There were doors all round the hall….

1.3 Comparative reference
In this category, Halliday and Hasan recognise two types: general comparison and particular comparison. These two types can be spelt out as in Diagram 3.3 below.